Summertiiiime and the Livin' Is....
For my 12 (OK, 14) readers: It is summer. The Girl is home most of the time, unless I drive her to a class or event or store for different air-conditioning than ours at home. Smother is still here, still trying to manipulate me into being her entertainment and comrade in anxiety and panic. Mister works his 8 hours then wants to relax and has done a great job lately taking The Girl to the park instead (after 6 p.m. when it has cooled down to 87 degrees or so). I have been able to read books only because I use a post-it flag to mark the sentence (or clause) I was reading when interrupted. The few posts I have done since classes ended (notice I did not say "when work ended"--like most professors, I think or at least have been told by my chair, I do a
fair amount of free work over the summer for the University) have taken 1-3 hours not because of their complexity or brilliance but because I am needed, questioned, talked to (or at), on duty every 15 minutes or so and being the non-genius I am, I need a good 5-10 minutes, sometimes 15 or 20, to get warmed up. ("Flow" takes longer and is something I haven't seen in almost 2 years.) At home, there is no vacation time, no off-duty or comp hours, no temps, no leaves of absence. I put in my 8 hours (slacking as much as I can) then get ready to slack through 6-8 hours more.
Though there is much I want to write about (collective punishment in the Middle East and in the massive police action here in Central City and elsewhere young dark men stand around for more than 20 seconds; Darfur; the book on Rwanda I've been reading and how working for the UN on a mission not supported by the US, France or other big gun countries is a lot like working for the University, though in my case no one dies; NO assessors; the complete and impartial sex ed Smother thinks has been in schools all my life and how most women are stupid if they don't have a nurse's knowledge of bodily functions, anatomy and sexuality; and the 40 other thoughts I've wanted to develop), posting will be sporadic until The Girl is in school all day or I win the lottery and hire a domestic staff (at 2x the living wage or more; just because I don't want to do it doesn't make it worthless).
Also:
fair amount of free work over the summer for the University) have taken 1-3 hours not because of their complexity or brilliance but because I am needed, questioned, talked to (or at), on duty every 15 minutes or so and being the non-genius I am, I need a good 5-10 minutes, sometimes 15 or 20, to get warmed up. ("Flow" takes longer and is something I haven't seen in almost 2 years.) At home, there is no vacation time, no off-duty or comp hours, no temps, no leaves of absence. I put in my 8 hours (slacking as much as I can) then get ready to slack through 6-8 hours more.Though there is much I want to write about (collective punishment in the Middle East and in the massive police action here in Central City and elsewhere young dark men stand around for more than 20 seconds; Darfur; the book on Rwanda I've been reading and how working for the UN on a mission not supported by the US, France or other big gun countries is a lot like working for the University, though in my case no one dies; NO assessors; the complete and impartial sex ed Smother thinks has been in schools all my life and how most women are stupid if they don't have a nurse's knowledge of bodily functions, anatomy and sexuality; and the 40 other thoughts I've wanted to develop), posting will be sporadic until The Girl is in school all day or I win the lottery and hire a domestic staff (at 2x the living wage or more; just because I don't want to do it doesn't make it worthless).
Also:
- Strain is sticking by his words--no surprise there.
- A few students have objected to their final grades, including one who sent 2 emails with few if any capitals and no punctuation, of course bewildered why she didn't pass the course.
- It may just be my PKSD (post-Katrina stress disorder)--maybe the interruptions are my delusion and I can't seem to get things done because of that, not the family I dearly love (except for Smother).
- Hopefully, the chair will hire an ABD or 2 to take some of the pressure off her and the Presidential professor (who went from teaching 1-2 classes a semester to a full load of 4).
- It still looks like the water drained out of Gentilly last week.
- Bullets make it look like you've actually said something. I see why students love them so.
G Bitch at 9:01 AM
2 Comments:
This is still a brilliant site!
P.S.
1. PKSD. Good term. My student says there is also now something called PCSD, postcolonial stress disorder. There isn't much written on this, and it is primarily social workers talking about what happens in places like Native reservations. But
I think this is a very interesting concept, with wider applicability.
2. Smother. Right now I am too lazy to search archives for emotional / verbal abuse post but: one thing mine does is, get way overinvolved and try to get me worried about something which isn't actually worrisome. if she succeeds in destabilizing me, she then refuses to engage in any form of restabilization - just shuts down the conversation. She has been doing this since forever, I mean really forever, but I only managed to isolate and identify the phenomenon today.
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