Nearly Perfect Weekend

The imperfect this weekend was TM's absence--he's away at a conference--but the solitude might have been good for me, to be honest; the last four weeks have been such a flurry of activity, all of it involving other people, that my powerful introverted tendencies were demanding some rest and restoration absent human contact.

So here's what I do on a perfect weekend, school-year style:

• Schoolwork: Read nearly everything I'm teaching this week; put together next paper prompt for Survey; assigned readings and assignment for Thursday's seminar. I'm conferencing in Comp this week, so there was only a little planning to be done for that (figuring out what to tell them to bring to their conferences, a few emails to write, etc.).
• Housework: Did all the laundry (I heart my clothesline! Laundry is my favorite chore. The fact that it was sunny and 70 degrees this weekend, while weird, made laundrifying even more pleasurable than usual); raked a good bit of the yard (well, I raked for one hour, and decided that that was sufficient; it also gave us more leaf-mulch potential than we can possibly exploit); enormous grocery trip to the brand new nice grocery store in Nominally Ordinary City, along with a few miscellaneous purchases from Discount Grocery, Standard Grocery, and the Pet Store; took out the compost. I still need to vacuum tonight before TM gets home, though. Oh! Those accursed false ladybugs that DIE all over the place! Ech. Our accursed off-white wall-to-wall carpeting doesn't help matters, either, and you can only cover so much of it with area rugs.
  
• Food-wise: I cooked like crazy yesterday. TM had expressed an interest in mushrooms, so I complied with mushroom pate and mushroom pie on a spinach crust; we also now have split pea soup, a lovely walnut-onion bread (in four little boules), and granola to last for ten days. TM usually makes a huge quantity of food for lunches on the weekend, so I enjoyed being able to reciprocate--although it left me pretty wiped out by 6:30 yesterday evening. And I also had that weird thing where you cook a lot and then think you've eaten a lot, even though you haven't, so I didn't really eat enough for dinner, but that's OK. I rounded it out with a little whiskey before bed.
• Exercise! I did some lovely yoga on Saturday night and went swimming yesterday afternoon. I cut myself a little swimming slack, though (35 minutes/1400 m instead of 40-45 minutes/1 mile), because my arms were achy from all the raking.
• Cats: Lots of cuddle time.
• Pleasure: Watched a goofy British movie and a documentary about gender and politics. I'm also reading Wolf Hall for this Booker-book club thing that we're organizing at Field, and it's wonderful to have a good reason to read for pleasure! And during the school year, too!
  
• Scholarship: Naught. That's okay, though.
• Sleep: Plenty, although the cats troubled my repose very early on Saturday morning. Naps on the couch both days. The house was so very quiet, all the little kitties dozing on their cushions.
• Social activities: Why, none! I did participate in the College open house on Saturday, giving a little spiel on the Humanities with a colleague, and that was fine. It was enough, in fact; I reveled in my solitude these two days.
  

Ah, yes. I feel rested and relaxed. What a nice way to start the week! Unfortunately, three days of comp conferences will wear me out plenty, but after the incredible exhaustion that was killing me last Monday-Thursday (I rallied, more or less, on Friday), I'm just delighted to be starting out strong.

Technical problems

Field's webmail system has been down all weekend.

My first-years have major drafts due tomorrow.

A few of them need to redirect their papers in ways that I made clear via email.

They cannot read my emails. They cannot reply. They cannot ask questions.

Last weekend, webmail was down on Sunday, and that was plenty annoying. But really? Two full days? I know that this is probably part of the big server migration blah blah blah I don't know what that means that's happening, but oh my God, we're worried about retention and here we are making EMAIL inaccessible to students and faculty every ten days or so.

And might I mention that this shut-down, like many of the others, was unannounced? We'll probably get a message at noon tomorrow telling us that webmail was inaccessible for a few hours over the weekend, or something. Thanks, man.

Sigh.

Bullets of weary-but-well

• The honors admin conference was great. I took feverish notes in every panel and had to put huge stars next to every idea that I got for our program in order to keep track of them. Met with Awesome New Dean on Monday and got the go-ahead for several of the short-term changes I'd like to make; he's also enthusiastic about the long-term changes. In the end, I'm probably going to wind up doing a good bit of work over the next year or so to get these things off the ground, but I think that it could really beef up our Honors program--which would add to the intellectual climate on campus in a very positive way.
• If I'm going to stay at Field, I want to have a hand in making it the kind of college where I want to be. So yeah, there's work. But if it can have a real impact, then it's worth doing.
  
• While I was at the conference, I had dinner with one of my very oldest friends--a dinner that turned into last call in Adams Morgan and then singing along to Erasure and James in his car and finally my staggering back up to my room at 3:30. I had a great time--but reliving them, even for a night, made me wonder how I survived my party years. And kind of glad that they now only live in the occasional nostalgic recreation.
  
• Brit Lit finally seems to be taking off this semester, after a half-term of perfectly fine but lackluster sessions. On Monday, I think that I actually managed to teach some poetry well--a rare victory for me. About 14 out of 17 students talked, they were all taking notes, I was bouncing off the walls--and we only discussed two sonnets. It kind of rocked. I was so wound up that I fear I assaulted a senior colleague with my enthusiasm when I passed him in the hall after class.
• Seminar was a tiny bit poky today, because I was exhausted, but it still ran pretty well--and given that I usually leave that class in a haze of I! Love! Teaching!, I can't complain.
• Comp is fine. No open rebellions and very few sleepers; everyone is polite and plays along. Can't complain there either.
• Tonight was the first-ever Honors Banquet, organized and put on by me. It was exactly what I didn't quite dare to hope that it would be: fun, informal, and a very good mix of faculty and students, with an entertaining talk by the former director and some terrific mini-presentations by current thesis-writers. Awesome New Dean told me that it was excellent; a student said that she thought it would be boring but that it was lots of fun; the former director wondered why he'd never done something similar.
• I also got to catch up with a bunch of Honors students whom I hadn't seen in a while, and who are just super cool and smart.
• I am now drinking rum.
• So all the whining in the last post or two aside, things are actually excellent this semester, and you know, I do think that I've started kicking ass in this job. When I look back on my first year, it's almost unrecognizable; I remember thinking that, if I knew I was going to be at Field, teaching these classes, for the rest of my career, I would seriously consider leaving it. And now--I enjoy teaching, I have a great rapport with most of my students, and I'm getting things done on campus. There is definitely too much--and some of that's my fault--but hell, I'm thriving, professionally.
  
• I only hope that burn-out doesn't hover on my horizon.
  

Addendum

Well, that was about the most self-indulgent post ever. I'm already slightly embarrassed. But I will not delete it, for reasons of my own. (Actually, the chief reason is that I post so infrequently that I am loath to delete anything that I do get around to posting.)

Anyway, after I wrote it, it occurred to me that the situation is this: If one wants this to be a better school, the kind of school where one is really excited to teach, one must do a lot of the work oneself to make it that way. (I just taught Pale Fire, and I think that I shall use "one" to refer to myself henceforth, at least sometimes.) Because we're so small, individual faculty can make a real difference here.

This is both empowering and debilitating.

Empowering, obviously, because if I want to strengthen the Honors program, I can pretty easily do things to make it stronger. Like setting up a recruitment campaign with automated letter-production through Admissions, putting together a new brochure, setting up a website, organizing new events for Honors students, attending a conference for Honors program administrators this weekend, considering ways of building in study-abroad opportunities for the students (contingent upon funding), more closely monitoring Honors seminars, etc.

Debilitating, obviously, because to do any one of those things, I have to do it. There is no one else.

I could just not care, and go home and do my research, only putting the minimum into service, but a) I would not get tenure, and b) I would hate--or at least resent--my job. Getting invested in the college makes me happier in my work. But it also very much limits what that work can look like.

So maybe what I need to do, here--in fact, obviously what I need to do--is to not feel guilty when I don't write. And to write when I can and want to write, and to apply for everything that might free up some time to write, and not to take on service obligations that I don't care about.

Because the idea of making this a better school? Well, that's pretty exciting.

(There. A more optimistic way of looking at things. But it's not just spin; I think that this is what's really going on, and how I'm somehow even busier than I was in my first year.)

An hour a day might be too much

I composed a whole post in my head today (on my way to and from the eye doctor--it is just possible that the Endless Eye Problems of 2009 are resolved, and that I was just allergic to my new contacts) on the whole just-write-for-an-hour-a-day-and-you-will-be-an-accomplished-scholar! thing. But I don't think that I'll try to reconstruct it here. For one thing, no one is holding a gun to my head and insisting that I be an accomplished scholar right now (Field certainly isn't; I could roll into tenure with my few publications). Nor is that rhetoric actually out there to justify my 4/4; it's just trying to help carve some space for writing and to get around the excuse of not having time. So my attack was on something of a straw man.

But you know, this month has been exhausting. My talk two weeks ago went well, by the way. None of the questions were wackadoodle and it was fun to introduce people to my field. I felt poised and polished. My slides were gorgeous.

And then that weekend we went to a wedding in Northern City, and the next day my eyes (contact allergy!!!!) were so red and sore that it hurt to open them.

And then on Tuesday of that week TM had a formal dinner for eight in our home for a visiting speaker, because the only restaurant in town is Pizza Hut and so if we want our 7:30 pm speaker to have a decent meal, it's pretty much that or the dining hall. (He did all the cooking, but there was the cleaning/arranging/general hectic-ness of getting eight people into our wee dining room.)

I have no memory of Wednesday-Friday, but I'm sure it was busy.

Was that really just last week? This weekend I sort of crashed and just read for class, finished my article, cooked, and didn't grade.

Next week is a big Honors "banquet" that I'm organizing from scratch.

The day after the banquet, we're up for hosting the division meeting in our living room for the second time this semester. This means cleaning, snacks, wine, furniture rearranging. (I fully support the off-campus division meetings, but I like them best when they're in other people's homes.)

Tomorrow I'm flying to DC for this conference thingy (not presenting or anything).

I've had to grade papers from pretty much all of my classes in the last two weeks.

Spent three days conferencing with freshmen (Thurs, Fri, Mon).

Spent two afternoons watching Teacher Ed presentations (two to come next week, too).

You know I'm teaching four classes, right? As are most of you all, I know. This is not (despite appearances) a busier-than-thou post. In fact, this week--or at least today through Saturday--could almost count as a lull. But I. am. tired. So tired. I've found that I cannot be up past 10 or I am incurably cranky in the morning, and this is not fair to TM.

So what does this have to do with the hour-a-day business? Well, as I told myself in the car this afternoon, yes I sometimes have an hour to spare (although I cannot really reduce the time spent prepping my courses, as this is pretty bare-bones other than the seminar, and I think that I owe it to my students to prep well for that; and my service commitments are not optional; and I am the Honors program at this point, so that's got to keep going; and at my college, on my campus, if a student wants to meet to talk about a paper, you meet with him, although of course you can set boundaries for when that happens, but honestly some days are so booked up--for both of us--that there aren't many options other than 8 am or 4 pm; and I feel ethically bound to attend actual academic events on campus, since we have so few of those and so much that is fluff and there are so few faculty and even fewer who show up for lectures; so really those hours aren't all over the place--and no I don't watch TV, though we cram in an episode of Rome, these days, at 10pm on Saturdays when we're tired of working, and I find it hard to work on Fridays after 5, and yes we spend some time on the weekend hanging laundry and raking and cooking, but that's important; and did I mention that I'm up by 6:30 every morning? Yes I swear this isn't a busier-than-thou; I am simply very tired this week and must bitch). So Yes, I have an hour some days when I could write or read. Once in a while I even do write or read for my research.

But often, when I have an hour, I want to go to bed early because I'm exhausted, or I want to go to a yoga class, or I'd like to talk to my husband or play with the cats. (Or blog. Or, more likely, read your blogs.)

No one disagrees with me. I know.

I just have a tendency--going back to my youth, at least high school, though it was decidedly latent in college--to feel that if something could be done, I should do it. Or else I was a slacker.

So I read all the "write for an hour a day!" stuff, and I totally endorse it, and in moments of energy I embrace and proselytize.

And then I get exhausted, and stop. And I feel bad about that, like some kind of slacker.

And that's not right.

(Humor me, all. This is a long, pointless, fighting-the-straw-man whine. But I need it.) (Oh, and hey, lookee here! I composed the post I was not going to compose. Evidently I have some spare time on my hands, eh?)

And I wonder, too: How the hell do people do this with kids?

(And all the while I do genuinely love my job, in all of its parts, even comp, sometimes. I'm just...tired today. And yesterday. This week.)

(Oh, and I will not be taking my computer with me Thurs-Sat. I will take the pomo novel I'm teaching next week, and Wolf Hall, which will be pure fun, and 17 Brit Lit papers. It will rock.)

The fine example we set

OK, really, I'm tired of this. It seems that virtually every flier that gets put up around campus--and not by students, I might add, since students have to go through a complicated process to get fliers approved and therefore don't seem to post any, ever--has some trivial but appalling spelling mistake.

To wit:

• "your" for "you're"
• "insite" for "insight"
• "verses" for "versus"

These gems are sent out through email and highlighted on posters on every college building.

Semester after semester I try to teach my comp students that yes, there is a difference between "your" and "you're," or "there"-"their"-"they're," that getting them wrong makes you look unprofessional and sloppy, that you need to follow conventional spelling, and that proofreading is important. Is it any wonder that my weak little message doesn't sink in, when this is what their college models as acceptable communication?

Sigh. It's 8:23 in the morning, and I'm just about done.

Aggravation, oh aggravation,* I am so tired

I skipped a talk tonight that TM has to go to (it being on a topic that marginally relates to religion) so that I could stay home and prep for tomorrow's seminar, during which I'll be observed by a senior colleague. (For the record, may I say that this will be my third observation in a week???)

And yet, I just discovered that the flash drive on which my prep notes (I was so proud of myself for starting this while I was still on campus!) is still stuck in my office computer.

Bleah. I can take a few more notes, I guess, but will have to drag my ass into the office early AGAIN tomorrow to finish up before my 9am meeting with a student who wants to ask me questions about a scholarship I know nothing about. Is it likely that I will research the scholarship before we meet? No. Is it likely that this student--who is quite a smart and lovely person, don't get me wrong--will nonetheless manage to hang out in my office for the better part of an hour? Yes. Yes, it is.

Might I also report, for the record, that I spent two hours watching teacher ed presentations today, and will spend two hours doing so tomorrow, and next Monday, and next Tuesday? And might I also report that these presentations are all variations on the Children Are Our Future theme? Which is intolerable and makes me want to kill myself? Truly?

Even so, I am feeling moderately guilty for skipping the talk when now I can't really do my prep anyway. Luckily, I have plenty of grading to do, so there's no fear of idle hands in this house!

I want to go to bed.

*I know that Dr. Virago hates the misuse of this word, the proper meaning of which I only learned courtesy of her blog. But I think that this post can legitimately claim to be about the heaping up of exhausting burdens, and thus I will retain it as a significant part of the title.