I am close to caught up on all sorts of little homework stuff but I had a colleague from another department come in my office to ask if me leaving was true. Yup, it is. So we talked about it for a bit and some random stuff and how this might impact my colleague (I am a tiny bit annoyed that this was the major focus of the conversation) and then I just wasn't in the mood to work in my office any more, so I went home. Now I'm back to going through a whole bunch of feelings I had been avoiding for a while and I don't feel like working or doing much of anything. And I definitely don't feel like doing any job search related stuff in this mood. They say that once you have been non-renewed or put on a terminal contract, you should put only the bare minimum into your teaching and focus all that extra energy into job searching or making yourself into a better candidate, but that only works if you don't hyperventilate and freak out whenever confronting the job market stuff again. Ugh. Bleah.
Thing is, I have fewer courses this semester because I have been consistently overloaded previous semesters, (yeah that's not a problem when dealing with new faculty) and my students have been dropping like flies (another sign of being a crappy teacher?) so in a weird way I actually have lots of time. But no motivation to do crappy stuff, whether it be job apps or grading homework, and no usefulness to getting to know this region or meet people or get involved in stuff ... So I have been playing a lot of silly cheap computer games lately. Not really the kind of grand activity you remember with fondness when you look back over your life, but, sigh.
So, yeah. Add "bored" to that list of grumpy and sad. Thanks a lot, colleague! I had managed to compartmentalize enough to get through all my crap in a fairly good mood. Now I've got to build all those defenses up again.
3 comments:
I hate when someone takes your problem and says, "Oh, but your problem affects ME!!" Psh. Come on colleague. Stop being a douche.
I'm sorry. :(
Ugh. I'm sorry. It seems to me that, if people are going to bring up the subject, they bear some responsibility for steering the direction in a supportive direction. If they want to manage their own anxiety (and any non-renewing *is* going to raise the general anxiety level), they can talk to someone else.
And focusing more energy on the job search and less on teaching doesn't mean doing so all the time. Sometimes you've just got to do whatever gets you through the day (and helps you recover enough to go back into the fray).
That first "direction" should be "conversation." It's late; I should go to bed.
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