I need to do more job applications and get set for all the crap that is posted for the post-MLA job search. Sigh. I went out with people and had more beer than usual (ie none on weeknights) so I am tired and have been just sitting here looking at cute pictures of kittens instead.
Oh, and I had an MLA interview. I have now been rejected for said MLA interview and will not be doing a campus visit. Meh. This rejection, for a variety of reasons, was not nearly so devastating as the post-campus visit rejection from a couple years ago. Which is good, since all that unhappiness came out in ulcers and panic attacks and a bunch of physical symptoms that then inspired more terror and anxiety than the actual rejection did. I guess I have gotten inured to both rejections and my panic attack symptoms and can talk my way down from both. I should be thankful I have coping skills? Eh.
When the chair of the dept. heard that I had been out for an MLA interview she got very flustered, and hastened to point out that they are going to need to replace a lot of the postdocs this year (she wasn't able to fill all the spots last year --- to cover all these freshman comp classes they could easily add 7 more positions, she says) and that she had talked to the dean about extending all of us for a third year. Which is nice, although I'm officially not believing it until you hand me another year contract and ask me to sign it.
On the other hand, I'm not all that keen on staying. I mean, I like the locale and the people and (most) of the courses. But I would exist here very differently if this were a renewable lectureship and I was trying to put down some roots. Adding a year on to a postdoc only extends the temporary-ness, and I am feeling very tired out by the constant job applications. I feel like I have been done with the PhD for so long and I should be somewhere building some sort of career at this point, whether that is academic or not.
Right after the rejection I was sad and totally beating myself up --- not that I had done anything wrong in the interview, because I believe them when they say it was lovely but they have different ideas of fit --- but at the sheer waste of time and energy of all those years of writing up applications and doing job searches and angsting about jobs. All of those hours and pages could add up to a book. Or a huge volunteer or political campaign. Or a huge chunk of a job. It seems like this whole process is a massive waste of smart people's time and resources; think of all those people who do this year after year for months, and then think about the world's problems that could have been solved (or at least alleviated) or beautiful things produced instead. It's sad.
So I went on monster and idealist and the fed gov jobs site and a bunch of other places and thought about getting a nonacademic job. But. Everything I see that I am qualified for (so no stats or quant or finance experience), I don't want to do. It bores me. It looks like crap. I printed off about 5 or so jobs and when I contemplate the possibility of working at these jobs for a year or two, I shrug and go "meh." I am ready to settle down and stay put and have a decent salary, in other words, but am not ready to do just any old crap job to do it.
I was talking with one of the other postdocs and mentioned this --- she had passed along an organizing job, knowing that I like all that social-justice stuff --- and I mentioned the problems I was having that I just mentioned. She said she thought that would be the biggest transition, moving from living for your work to working to live, and I think that's right.
The problem is, I really really love academic work. I just had a great day of teaching where all of my classes went well and I was totally energized and high off it. On my non-teaching day I alternately faffed about and relaxed and edited my article and felt really happy about even the frustrating parts of that process and did teaching prep that accidentally got distracted as I just went off on a bunch of cool tangents and learned cool things while preparing an introduction to research activity for comp. Unlike my office mate who is feeling dispirited here and "exhausted" by the experience of teaching, I love it and totally thrive on it --- even here where there is a heavy load and unprepared, often unappreciative students. (And my style in the classroom is so totally manic and silly and happy and the office mate teaches in such a flat, low-key, dead style that this person just exudes the aura of not wanting to be there ---- which in turn changes how the students interact and causes more behavior problems for this person). I'm not like the people who write on alt-ac or who leave the tenure track jobs because they hate the profession or the research side of it (I complain about it, but I love to complain, if you get my drift). I just can't land a job that will allow me to stay there and do my job.
I guess I have decided to continue with applying for the academic jobs all this semester ... even though I am increasingly frustrated with the time that is being sucked away from my life. Seriously, does anyone look back on their life and say, I'm so glad I wasted about 5 years with continual job searching? Ugh. And then for afterwards ...? I am still torn. The options, I guess, are to agree to stay another year in the postdoc and do this all over again. Or pack up and move back to California and stay in my parents' basement (metaphorically) while looking for nonacademic jobs. Because I refuse to do some random job I don't like in a location I don't like.
So, in short, nothing's changed. Except that I know I need to make some decisions. Well, even that's not new. Why do I even work at all? I should just become a professional slacker and sponge off my parents for the rest of my life.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
A quick update to announce that I have nothing to announce. Now with article writing update!
So, how are you doing? I have plenty of things to do and no urge to do them. It's been a slow weekend here in Postdoc City. I did a little bit of teaching prep (but there is more on my list) and some yoga. I spent a lot of time knitting and lazing about (but I messed up the knitting to the point where I think I need to start over yet again so I won't even be able to show progress on that) and did a little cooking. Oh, and Kill Bill vol. 1 and 2 were on the other night.
I really really should be working on my article. It is done, so I should clean it up and send it out. I'm afraid to look up in my planner when I first started working on this ... but it may be near the one-year mark; we might be approaching Floyd's birthday. Yeah, definitely time to kick him out of the nest. Unfortunately (or actually fortunately but I'm a big dork), I asked a friend to look it over and she said yes. In the email returning the marked-up version, she says it has lovely writing and good ideas (my strengths) but that the different topics are so awkwardly put together she _almost_ thinks it should be broken into two articles (my big weakness). But that she thinks if I could have a clear reason for why the different ideas are stuck together, and if I really clearly demonstrate that in my intro, it could be a complex, interesting, good article.
This also sounds likely; I agree with her assessment. And yet, who really wants their fears about their writing to be confirmed? I was kinda hoping she would say it was brilliant and I shouldn't change a thing and just send it off. So now I need to open the file and look at her line-by-line comments, and fix the articulations, and rewrite the intro, and snazz up the big claims of the conclusion. Yeah. I just gotta do that. Just gotta look at it. Just look at it. Just look.
Why can't I move?
I really really should be working on my article. It is done, so I should clean it up and send it out. I'm afraid to look up in my planner when I first started working on this ... but it may be near the one-year mark; we might be approaching Floyd's birthday. Yeah, definitely time to kick him out of the nest. Unfortunately (or actually fortunately but I'm a big dork), I asked a friend to look it over and she said yes. In the email returning the marked-up version, she says it has lovely writing and good ideas (my strengths) but that the different topics are so awkwardly put together she _almost_ thinks it should be broken into two articles (my big weakness). But that she thinks if I could have a clear reason for why the different ideas are stuck together, and if I really clearly demonstrate that in my intro, it could be a complex, interesting, good article.
This also sounds likely; I agree with her assessment. And yet, who really wants their fears about their writing to be confirmed? I was kinda hoping she would say it was brilliant and I shouldn't change a thing and just send it off. So now I need to open the file and look at her line-by-line comments, and fix the articulations, and rewrite the intro, and snazz up the big claims of the conclusion. Yeah. I just gotta do that. Just gotta look at it. Just look at it. Just look.
Why can't I move?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
On the one hand, I might not be as prepared as I'd like. On the other, I have goat cheese.
I am back in Postdoc City --- damn I hate red-eye flights! and waiting super long times in the airport too keyed up to actually do anything productive while waiting for those flights! and not being able to sleep on said flights because they are up high in the air and are scary! and I was in the middle seat of the middle section! --- and have now recovered enough that can do useful things. For example:
- scrubbed (really scrubbed!) down my kitchen completely
- cleaned the living room/eating area
- cleaned the downstairs bathroom
- gone on a massive grocery run and got the cat food/litter etc.
- continued to work on a syllabus
- ate goat cheese
Actually, I am still doing that last one. It is nice. I spent a crapload at the grocery store but one of the things I did at the end of the last semester was eat all my "emergency pantry" food, so that I could replace it. And even inside the foil pouches, year-old granola bars taste pretty stale. But now I have a nice full pantry and am ready in case this freezing rain and snow actually hits this week --- or indeed, pretty much ever. (Oh, I still have a bunch of veggies to prep. Remind me to get to those.)
So over break I had this most marvelous fancy meal, and was introduced to pan-seared brussles sprouts with bacon. Wow, that was good! So now I have bacon and brussels sprouts in my fridge ready for me to experiment with. The goat cheese was more of a whim --- although I had a lovely watercress and endive salad with goat cheese crumbles and pomegranate seeds which probably inspired the longing glances toward the specialty cheese section at the back of the store. And that reminds me of my favorite Trader Joe's salad and now I am sad and miss Trader Joes. Sigh.
One drawback of not being here for a month but having the cats here is that the place really really needs cleaning afterwards. I found several dried piles of cat barf that I had to deal with, to say nothing of the general hair and mustiness everywhere. I still have to get to the whole upstairs and I want to do a deep cleaning before school starts again in case I don't really have time to do more than touch-ups during all the teaching madness. And of course I have a lot of work on my syllabi still --- haven't even touched the comp. The Fruit Studies class which was supposedly good and just had to get switched from a T/TH to M/W/F is taking a lot more time than I expected. Which means, of course, that I have probably completely underestimated how long it will take me to work up that damn comp research syllabus.
And to make me even more annoyed, I stopped by campus to deposit some checks and ask some questions about my paycheck, and the student center was closed!!! Presumably with the credit union closed inside it too. Grr. I will have to wait, because I need to talk to a live person.
So I still need to:
- proof/print/copy Fruit Studies syllabus
- update half the Fruit assignments and rewrite the damn Study Questions (thank you, three days a week instead of two! argh.)
- scan and upload the rest of the fruity reading goodness
- drop off stuff at library/pick up other stuff/check ILLs/go to the bank
- figure out the second half of my comp syllabus (??? Eh. I'm at a loss.)
- finish comp syllabus and all homework/ assignment instructions
- update (as in check page #s and edit) Stripy syllabus (and proof and copy etc)
- update comp and stripey websites
- make first day stuff for comp and stripey
- clean the upstairs bathroom (and catbox) my bedroom, and study
- wash massive laundry pile
- pester Dr Does Everything about Floyd
- collapse in exhaustion
Dang. I tired myself out writing that.
I had funny and interesting things to tell you earlier and wanted to say some more about my winter break, but I held off until I couldn't do any more syllabus work and now I'm too tired to think of what I was thinking. It just may continue like this for a while, sorry.
- scrubbed (really scrubbed!) down my kitchen completely
- cleaned the living room/eating area
- cleaned the downstairs bathroom
- gone on a massive grocery run and got the cat food/litter etc.
- continued to work on a syllabus
- ate goat cheese
Actually, I am still doing that last one. It is nice. I spent a crapload at the grocery store but one of the things I did at the end of the last semester was eat all my "emergency pantry" food, so that I could replace it. And even inside the foil pouches, year-old granola bars taste pretty stale. But now I have a nice full pantry and am ready in case this freezing rain and snow actually hits this week --- or indeed, pretty much ever. (Oh, I still have a bunch of veggies to prep. Remind me to get to those.)
So over break I had this most marvelous fancy meal, and was introduced to pan-seared brussles sprouts with bacon. Wow, that was good! So now I have bacon and brussels sprouts in my fridge ready for me to experiment with. The goat cheese was more of a whim --- although I had a lovely watercress and endive salad with goat cheese crumbles and pomegranate seeds which probably inspired the longing glances toward the specialty cheese section at the back of the store. And that reminds me of my favorite Trader Joe's salad and now I am sad and miss Trader Joes. Sigh.
One drawback of not being here for a month but having the cats here is that the place really really needs cleaning afterwards. I found several dried piles of cat barf that I had to deal with, to say nothing of the general hair and mustiness everywhere. I still have to get to the whole upstairs and I want to do a deep cleaning before school starts again in case I don't really have time to do more than touch-ups during all the teaching madness. And of course I have a lot of work on my syllabi still --- haven't even touched the comp. The Fruit Studies class which was supposedly good and just had to get switched from a T/TH to M/W/F is taking a lot more time than I expected. Which means, of course, that I have probably completely underestimated how long it will take me to work up that damn comp research syllabus.
And to make me even more annoyed, I stopped by campus to deposit some checks and ask some questions about my paycheck, and the student center was closed!!! Presumably with the credit union closed inside it too. Grr. I will have to wait, because I need to talk to a live person.
So I still need to:
- proof/print/copy Fruit Studies syllabus
- update half the Fruit assignments and rewrite the damn Study Questions (thank you, three days a week instead of two! argh.)
- scan and upload the rest of the fruity reading goodness
- drop off stuff at library/pick up other stuff/check ILLs/go to the bank
- figure out the second half of my comp syllabus (??? Eh. I'm at a loss.)
- finish comp syllabus and all homework/ assignment instructions
- update (as in check page #s and edit) Stripy syllabus (and proof and copy etc)
- update comp and stripey websites
- make first day stuff for comp and stripey
- clean the upstairs bathroom (and catbox) my bedroom, and study
- wash massive laundry pile
- pester Dr Does Everything about Floyd
- collapse in exhaustion
Dang. I tired myself out writing that.
I had funny and interesting things to tell you earlier and wanted to say some more about my winter break, but I held off until I couldn't do any more syllabus work and now I'm too tired to think of what I was thinking. It just may continue like this for a while, sorry.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Feh.
I feel sick today. I've been feeling "off" for a couple days now and having trouble sleeping besides. I have been at my parents' house _way_ too long without any time/freedom to go elsewhere and not be around them.
Monday I hung out at my brother's house, which was quite nice --- I watched him play one of his new PS3 games while I curled up on the couch with my nieces and nephews, and I faffed about with my syllabus. It was really nice, being able to do work and spend some time with the kids and lump around on the couch and make fart jokes when my brother's character blew his war horn on the screen, all at once. At least I thought it was a wonderful day, but at dinner my niece said she felt feverish and sick and nauseated. So now I am worried that I have been made sick. It's hard to tell what's sickness and what's anxiety, though.
Also, I'm a little shocked by how much work I still have left for my classes, considering I have done several days of faffing about on them already. The Fruit Studies class got a new edition of a textbook, and I was smart enough to photocopy just the table of contents for both rather than bring the books, but that means I have a lot of checking to make sure that the stuff is in the order I want it. And I have two of the assignments I want to re-write based on my last semester's experience, but the notes for them are back at Postdoc City.
Yesterday and today I have been working on the comp syllabus and it is still a mess --- it took a long time to go backwards from what the portfolio and end result should be to all the different steps of the process to then slotting in readings I thought would work. And I don't like putting something on a day unless I know what I am going to be doing on that day and how it fits into the overall whole, so that means I am planning out a lot of the day-to-day stuff before getting it into the syllabus. Somebody else wrote about wanting to do it this way, I think it might have been Anastasia. Anyway, there's nothing I hate more than to come into class than thinking "why the hell did I assign this reading? And what connection does it have to what we did yesterday?" And I need to write homework questions and work up my library assignment ideas into a more polished form.
So, in sum, I am feeling too anxious/sick to my stomach to work and still have many many things to do. And I appear to have used up all the internet procrastination. Dangit. I wish my brother hadn't had to go back to work; I could have sat on the couch and watched him hack up orcs or whatever while my niece and nephew tried to put their feet on each other's heads. That sounds relaxing.
Monday I hung out at my brother's house, which was quite nice --- I watched him play one of his new PS3 games while I curled up on the couch with my nieces and nephews, and I faffed about with my syllabus. It was really nice, being able to do work and spend some time with the kids and lump around on the couch and make fart jokes when my brother's character blew his war horn on the screen, all at once. At least I thought it was a wonderful day, but at dinner my niece said she felt feverish and sick and nauseated. So now I am worried that I have been made sick. It's hard to tell what's sickness and what's anxiety, though.
Also, I'm a little shocked by how much work I still have left for my classes, considering I have done several days of faffing about on them already. The Fruit Studies class got a new edition of a textbook, and I was smart enough to photocopy just the table of contents for both rather than bring the books, but that means I have a lot of checking to make sure that the stuff is in the order I want it. And I have two of the assignments I want to re-write based on my last semester's experience, but the notes for them are back at Postdoc City.
Yesterday and today I have been working on the comp syllabus and it is still a mess --- it took a long time to go backwards from what the portfolio and end result should be to all the different steps of the process to then slotting in readings I thought would work. And I don't like putting something on a day unless I know what I am going to be doing on that day and how it fits into the overall whole, so that means I am planning out a lot of the day-to-day stuff before getting it into the syllabus. Somebody else wrote about wanting to do it this way, I think it might have been Anastasia. Anyway, there's nothing I hate more than to come into class than thinking "why the hell did I assign this reading? And what connection does it have to what we did yesterday?" And I need to write homework questions and work up my library assignment ideas into a more polished form.
So, in sum, I am feeling too anxious/sick to my stomach to work and still have many many things to do. And I appear to have used up all the internet procrastination. Dangit. I wish my brother hadn't had to go back to work; I could have sat on the couch and watched him hack up orcs or whatever while my niece and nephew tried to put their feet on each other's heads. That sounds relaxing.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Ibid ibid
Have I mentioned that I hate Chicago Style? I mean, lately?
I did some article fixing this morning ---- only an hour and a half before I got too tired, but better than nothing --- and now I am going back through and fixing more footnotes. Of course I have no books with me, which makes the process even more frustrating. Ibid, ibid, ibid --- is it capitalized or not? italicized or not? and do I care about this at all?
In honor of stupid citation tricks, here's an ugly toad I found on the internet. Ibid, ibid, ibid.
I did some article fixing this morning ---- only an hour and a half before I got too tired, but better than nothing --- and now I am going back through and fixing more footnotes. Of course I have no books with me, which makes the process even more frustrating. Ibid, ibid, ibid --- is it capitalized or not? italicized or not? and do I care about this at all?
In honor of stupid citation tricks, here's an ugly toad I found on the internet. Ibid, ibid, ibid.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
End of the year Posts roundup
Hello! It is December! 2011 is almost over! And nobody is posting blog updates to distract me while I am angsting about angsty things, so I have been amusing myself by reading my own archives!
(You think that's dull, go ahead out in the living room where you can watch Very Loud TV commercials being flipped through just fast enough for you to not follow anything. If you go out there, though, my dad is going to tell you to take out the garbage.)
Anyway, in case you missed what I have been up to at my postdoc, here are the highlights: I taught the same freakin' classes and was totally overwhelmed by grading in spring, I decided to write a new article not from the dissertation at all, I taught a summer class (on line and from my parents' home in California) came back and did a lot of hiking because we had a dry fall, taught the same freakin' classes and was even more overwhelmed by grading (though Fruit Studies went very well and students told me they liked me), and we finished up the semester with a death in the department which made everybody depressed and upset and I ended up taking a fifth (!!!!!!!) class as an overload because I am stupid and nice and ohmygod you should have seen the end of this semester's grading. To say nothing of the fact that a family member thought the gradebook was part of the prof's financial papers (???) and took them home to the parental household and we thought there was no record anymore of all the tests and papers the students had done. Luckily, it all worked out in the end. Whew!
All of this means that this was not my most prolific or interesting year of blog posts. Sorry. I went through them to find what funny stuff I had put up and was a bit disappointed in myself:
My Crazy Film Reviews:
Baby Doll
The Unknown
Humor:
D-90X Dissertating Challenge
Prose Polisher ad
In happier news, I wrote an article this year! I am quite proud of myself, considering the amount of teaching I had to deal with. I named my article Floyd, if you remember. Now, he's not really ready to fly yet --- though really, if you're flying, does it matter if you're missing a leg? --- but I reread the article today and it is looking pretty good! And approaching finished! I promise to be done with it soon!!! I will push him off a cliff to see him fly if it kills me!
Baby Pics of Floyd, the article:
A New Idea
Growing Up Into a Big, Bouncing Draft
Floyd and the Boneless Chicken Problem
Discovering the Perils of Interdisciplinary Research
Floyd Can Fly But Not Steer
I Contemplate Epigraphs for Floyd
Someone Else Already Wrote Floyd! (Luckily, I finally read the article and discovered it was on Froyd, not Floyd. Whew!)
I Join Another Damned Notorious Writing Group
As you can see, Floyd consumed the bulk of my non-complaining, non-procrastinatory blogging. Sure, it would look less impressive if I stacked up all the lookit-the-pretty! windowshopping posts I did and compared them to Floyd Work, but I'm not gonna do that, hah. You can go look back through my archives on your own.
Contemplating Pedagogy posts:
I want a framework for longer comp essays
I approve of the book Writing Analytically
I find a brainstorming exercise (from WA)
At some point soon I will amuse myself by making various lists and perhaps some new year's resolutions, but for now, all I can deal with is grooming up Floyd and obsessively refreshing the wiki.
(You think that's dull, go ahead out in the living room where you can watch Very Loud TV commercials being flipped through just fast enough for you to not follow anything. If you go out there, though, my dad is going to tell you to take out the garbage.)
Anyway, in case you missed what I have been up to at my postdoc, here are the highlights: I taught the same freakin' classes and was totally overwhelmed by grading in spring, I decided to write a new article not from the dissertation at all, I taught a summer class (on line and from my parents' home in California) came back and did a lot of hiking because we had a dry fall, taught the same freakin' classes and was even more overwhelmed by grading (though Fruit Studies went very well and students told me they liked me), and we finished up the semester with a death in the department which made everybody depressed and upset and I ended up taking a fifth (!!!!!!!) class as an overload because I am stupid and nice and ohmygod you should have seen the end of this semester's grading. To say nothing of the fact that a family member thought the gradebook was part of the prof's financial papers (???) and took them home to the parental household and we thought there was no record anymore of all the tests and papers the students had done. Luckily, it all worked out in the end. Whew!
All of this means that this was not my most prolific or interesting year of blog posts. Sorry. I went through them to find what funny stuff I had put up and was a bit disappointed in myself:
My Crazy Film Reviews:
Baby Doll
The Unknown
Humor:
D-90X Dissertating Challenge
Prose Polisher ad
In happier news, I wrote an article this year! I am quite proud of myself, considering the amount of teaching I had to deal with. I named my article Floyd, if you remember. Now, he's not really ready to fly yet --- though really, if you're flying, does it matter if you're missing a leg? --- but I reread the article today and it is looking pretty good! And approaching finished! I promise to be done with it soon!!! I will push him off a cliff to see him fly if it kills me!
Baby Pics of Floyd, the article:
A New Idea
Growing Up Into a Big, Bouncing Draft
Floyd and the Boneless Chicken Problem
Discovering the Perils of Interdisciplinary Research
Floyd Can Fly But Not Steer
I Contemplate Epigraphs for Floyd
Someone Else Already Wrote Floyd! (Luckily, I finally read the article and discovered it was on Froyd, not Floyd. Whew!)
I Join Another Damned Notorious Writing Group
As you can see, Floyd consumed the bulk of my non-complaining, non-procrastinatory blogging. Sure, it would look less impressive if I stacked up all the lookit-the-pretty! windowshopping posts I did and compared them to Floyd Work, but I'm not gonna do that, hah. You can go look back through my archives on your own.
Contemplating Pedagogy posts:
I want a framework for longer comp essays
I approve of the book Writing Analytically
I find a brainstorming exercise (from WA)
At some point soon I will amuse myself by making various lists and perhaps some new year's resolutions, but for now, all I can deal with is grooming up Floyd and obsessively refreshing the wiki.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Ahhhh. I am graded.
Or maybe that is grated. I certainly feel pretty grated right now, like my brain has been run through the cheese shredder.
Or maybe I am not graded, but degraded: I no longer have grades because I gave them to the students, and now I feel horrible about that. Nope; that doesn't work! I feel fiiiiine!
Of course, this all just means I have a new pile of things to tackle. Since coming home I have been dad-sitting (he's such an ornery cuss) and dad has been "putting me to work" which involves him insisting I am doing something wrong and he has to demonstrate how to do it correctly --- which is how I managed to make my brother come out early and hang the Christmas lights. I could not handle my dad insisting on climbing up the ladder to fix my efforts. Then dad made my brother unpack the artificial tree, so I got out and set up all the holiday decorations and prevented dad from getting down any heavy boxes, and then my sister came over and my brother put us both to work "fluffing" the tree as he put it together. And then we put the lights on the tree with much complaining and grumbling. My sister points out that this is our family tradition, which made me feel a little better. Good, I said, that means you can't put on the stupid Christmas carol music because that would drown out the sounds of ourbitching and moaning family togetherness.
Today's task (apart from all the grading) was a) humoring dad and b) not letting him get in the car. My aunt and uncle will be coming in for Christmas and my dad has remembered a certain item at a certain store in the middle of a nearby downtown place that my uncle loves. I don't want him to drive into all that craziness. Frankly, I don't want him to drive to his usual haunts around town, but really I don't want him dealing with crazy traffic and complex one-way streets. Dad keeps remembering that my uncle really loves going to that shop, so he wants to drive out there and get my uncle a gift. I got the idea that we call the shop and order a gift certificate and have it on hold, since my uncle always wants to go see the shop. That way my uncle can take a trip in and see all the geeky goodness and then pick out his own Christmas gift as well as buy himself whatever treats he already had in mind. (and my dad is not driving around crazy downtown.)
Every ten minutes or so, then, my dad would remember his Task, and either tell me to find the address of this place or announce that he was going to drive off and see where it was. And every ten minutes or so I would have to convince him that really he should call and ask for a gift certificate to be put on hold and just put it on his credit card and not drive there. Sheesh. He's not forgetful as in not understanding what's going on or where he is, he just has such a drive for getting stuff on to his to-do list and then off his to-do list that he is kinda insufferable. It's kinda fascinating, thinking about what the "go-go-go Type A business personality" mutates into with age; it's also really depressing, thinking about getting old.
Which brings me around to: my to do list! Tada! I need to make up for getting completely buried in grading --- I took an Incomplete in my Another Dammed Notorious Writing Group and need to finish my article over break. I sure hope I brought everything I need.
However! I still haven't gotten Christmas gifts, for the most part. And my sister in law had been saying she was going to take a day off work and take us all shopping in The City (not the one with the specialty shop) and I believe she has planned that day to be Monday. This makes checking in for the Winter Writing Workshop difficult. Hmm.
Anyway, a partial list:
- yoga! (I did some today! back to the habit! yay!)
- shopping in The City
- reread my article
- make to-do list for revising article
- buy and wrap all Christmas presents
- give myself a manicure/pedicure as I have gotten all dried out and disgusting what with winter and grading
- apply for some late job postings
other break to-dos include cleaning out my reading magazine/book pile, updating classes for spring, hopefully some last-minute interview prep but more likely completely reimagining a future career trajectory, and probably being forced to make the Christmas cookies. And dadsitting. I'm sure there will be a lot of that.
Edited to add this from the Writing Group page: Ok, I plan to put 2 hours a day this week towards my article! Today I read and took notes on an article I might want to include, and I still have to reread my latest draft and make a full-on to do list. And I still have a bunch of other things that have been added to my list! Oy.
Or maybe I am not graded, but degraded: I no longer have grades because I gave them to the students, and now I feel horrible about that. Nope; that doesn't work! I feel fiiiiine!
Of course, this all just means I have a new pile of things to tackle. Since coming home I have been dad-sitting (he's such an ornery cuss) and dad has been "putting me to work" which involves him insisting I am doing something wrong and he has to demonstrate how to do it correctly --- which is how I managed to make my brother come out early and hang the Christmas lights. I could not handle my dad insisting on climbing up the ladder to fix my efforts. Then dad made my brother unpack the artificial tree, so I got out and set up all the holiday decorations and prevented dad from getting down any heavy boxes, and then my sister came over and my brother put us both to work "fluffing" the tree as he put it together. And then we put the lights on the tree with much complaining and grumbling. My sister points out that this is our family tradition, which made me feel a little better. Good, I said, that means you can't put on the stupid Christmas carol music because that would drown out the sounds of our
Today's task (apart from all the grading) was a) humoring dad and b) not letting him get in the car. My aunt and uncle will be coming in for Christmas and my dad has remembered a certain item at a certain store in the middle of a nearby downtown place that my uncle loves. I don't want him to drive into all that craziness. Frankly, I don't want him to drive to his usual haunts around town, but really I don't want him dealing with crazy traffic and complex one-way streets. Dad keeps remembering that my uncle really loves going to that shop, so he wants to drive out there and get my uncle a gift. I got the idea that we call the shop and order a gift certificate and have it on hold, since my uncle always wants to go see the shop. That way my uncle can take a trip in and see all the geeky goodness and then pick out his own Christmas gift as well as buy himself whatever treats he already had in mind. (and my dad is not driving around crazy downtown.)
Every ten minutes or so, then, my dad would remember his Task, and either tell me to find the address of this place or announce that he was going to drive off and see where it was. And every ten minutes or so I would have to convince him that really he should call and ask for a gift certificate to be put on hold and just put it on his credit card and not drive there. Sheesh. He's not forgetful as in not understanding what's going on or where he is, he just has such a drive for getting stuff on to his to-do list and then off his to-do list that he is kinda insufferable. It's kinda fascinating, thinking about what the "go-go-go Type A business personality" mutates into with age; it's also really depressing, thinking about getting old.
Which brings me around to: my to do list! Tada! I need to make up for getting completely buried in grading --- I took an Incomplete in my Another Dammed Notorious Writing Group and need to finish my article over break. I sure hope I brought everything I need.
However! I still haven't gotten Christmas gifts, for the most part. And my sister in law had been saying she was going to take a day off work and take us all shopping in The City (not the one with the specialty shop) and I believe she has planned that day to be Monday. This makes checking in for the Winter Writing Workshop difficult. Hmm.
Anyway, a partial list:
- yoga! (I did some today! back to the habit! yay!)
- shopping in The City
- reread my article
- make to-do list for revising article
- buy and wrap all Christmas presents
- give myself a manicure/pedicure as I have gotten all dried out and disgusting what with winter and grading
- apply for some late job postings
other break to-dos include cleaning out my reading magazine/book pile, updating classes for spring, hopefully some last-minute interview prep but more likely completely reimagining a future career trajectory, and probably being forced to make the Christmas cookies. And dadsitting. I'm sure there will be a lot of that.
Edited to add this from the Writing Group page: Ok, I plan to put 2 hours a day this week towards my article! Today I read and took notes on an article I might want to include, and I still have to reread my latest draft and make a full-on to do list. And I still have a bunch of other things that have been added to my list! Oy.
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