Globally and locally

Well, locally, things aren't so hot.

I put in a very-nearly 12 hour day yesterday (I know, lots of people do that on a regular basis. But except for about 20 minutes to run home and grab a bowl of yogurt and piece of fruit - I misunderstood the meeting-call for this week and thought this was a lunch-meeting, so I did not pack a lunch), I was more or less busy that time:

prepping for class
writing an exam review
catch-up grading (oh, when is there ever NOT catch-up grading?)
typing up the minutes from a meeting
enrolling a student in classes using our hamster-wheel powered online enrollment system (seriously: some of the screens take 3 minutes to load)
teaching my class
writing an exam
counseling a stressed, "I'm gonna FAIL!!!" student
going to a stressful meeting, in which we made a decision that had to be made, but which will not have happy ramifications
eating lunch
meeting with my co-teacher and going over scores students earned on papers, and coming to some consensus grade out of both our grades
enrolling another student
writing three take-home computation-based stats exams AND going through detailed calculations of every problem thereon*
teaching my night class, which included a few nearly-miraculous feats of re-projecting data that had gone bad.

(*you HAVE to do that. You have to make the key up at the same time as the exam because if you don't, there's a small but real chance that you will invent an unworkable problem. I had it happen to me when I was a student - spent hours laboring over a problem, getting a total "What's This For?**" answer, and then, finally, several days after the take-home exam was given out, having the prof sheepishly announce that problem 2 could not be solved. Which, I guess, constitutes the Horrible Warning part of "if you can't be a good example, be a horrible warning," and so, I check all problems on an exam before sending it to the printer. Also, if you're telling students, "Run an F test to determine if variances are equal, then run the appropriate two-sample test," you need to know if you're directing them to do a standard t-test, a Behrens-Fisher, or a Mann-Whitney U.)

(** The politer explanation of what "WTF" stands for. Courtesy of the Ivory Tower Fiber Freaks group on Ravelry.)


Then I got home. Went to take a shower. Thought, "Wait, this water isn't as warm as it should be."

(Dear God, no.)

Tried filling the washer with hot water - figuring, if it worked, I could wash the sheets I pulled off my bed this weekend when I changed the sheets. Nope, water was cold by halfway through and the hot water heater did not kick on.

This is, I probably don't need to tell long-time readers, the hot water heater I had installed in 2007, after the 20-some year old one that came with the house finally died.

So, I looked at the booklet that came with it. Did the pilot-light test. Got nothing.

Stood looking at the heater: "Seriously? Seriously?" I asked it, "You crap out NOW, just over three years of service? And at the point in the semester when I'm having to pencil in times to go down the hall and micturate because I won't have time otherwise?"

And then all of my "Life should be fairer than this" or "don't I get a few karma points here?" feelings kicked in: I had just spent a long day. I helped a lot of people. I fixed lots of problems with people's GIS projects. I dealt with not one, but two, crying people that day. I was TIRED. I didn't want to deal with (a) getting someone out to look at the beast or (b) the possibility of buying a new hot-water heater (I have to say: three years. That's some pretty damn good engineered obsolescence, Whirlpool.) And (c), the thought of heating water on the stove just to wash my hair practically undid me at that point. Oh, I know, lots of people have done it in the past. (My mom did it all her growing-up years, and what's more, she or someone else had to haul the water from the well first). And I know lots of people do it now - even some by choice, people who live off the grid and such.

But at that point, to use a phrase someone else once used, I was fresh out of cope.

So, I did the only think I could think to do: start cleaning my kitchen. At 9 pm. Because IF I could get a plumber out, my kitchen was too much of a mess (in my eyes) for him to walk into it.

I did not sleep that well last night. (I also had to get up at one point and find earplugs, because apparently the dude who thinks it's juuuuust fiiiiine to park his boom car on one of the streets near me is back).

This morning, I have a little more perspective:

1. There are guys down in Chile being hauled out of a mine, one by one. Still alive, after a couple months, and apparently still ok, physically at least. (Last I heard, they had 9 out and were pretty much getting one hour per hour). I will say I do hope they have some good counseling/psychiatric programs in place for those guys, I cannot imagine you can be trapped underground for that long without it having bad effects.

But yeah - as one of the newscasters I heard said - it's something in amongst all the bad news that gives us a reason to hope.

2. The Rangers actually made it to the ALCS. While I am not sanguine about their chances against the Yankees, still, this is the farthest I think they've got in the franchise's history. (Or at least, its history in Texas). It would be fun to see the Rangers in the World Series, even though I doubt that's going to happen.

3. I tried the pilot-light test again this morning and watched more closely. There is a tiny, barely visible hint of blue flame, but it goes out when you release the "reset" button. Which seems to suggest, based on the troubleshooting flowchart that came with the thing, that it's either the thermocouple or the thermostat. (I seem to remember my parents having to have a thermocouple replaced on their hot water heater). As I lack the tools, the comfort, or the skills for doing either of those replacements, I'm going to call my plumber and if he works on gas hot water heaters, see if he can come out and fix it. I'm hoping today. (I have a late afternoon-evening meeting - but if the plumber comes out, I'm skipping the meeting). If not, I'll be pulling out my big crock pot as soon as I get home to start heating up water so I can wash my hair in the kitchen sink***. (Sigh.)

Once again, this is the place where I speculate that academics should be married (or coupled) to someone who is NOT in academia, someone with a job where they can take days off as needed. (Or, heck, I'd be willing to support a guy who worked at home writing books or something, if I loved him and he wasn't a total layabout). Because if the plumber said, "I can be out at noon today but not later," I'm out of luck. I cannot cancel classes for this kind of thing.

(*** Unless I decide this thing rises to the level of "It's OK for me to spend money a bit frivolously" and go to one of the local beauty parlors and pay someone to shampoo my hair for me. I have no idea what that costs now, though. Back some 17 years ago when I broke my elbow, I went to the barber shop where I got my hair cut and had the lady who cut my hair wash it for me. She charged $3, which I think she did partly because she was a family friend, and partly because she knew I was a grad student making $700 a month. I'm guessing shampoos now are closer to $15, which feels too expensive to me, seeing as I can buy two bottles each of the shampoo and conditioner that I use for that.)