Proud of myself

I was feeling a little down mid-morning today. Mostly, it was just dealing with people who were relentlessly negative, or who seem incapable of understanding that people who have different opinions from them may still be people of goodwill, or just general bad stuff happening to people around me (and again, I figuratively shake my fist at lymphoma; yet another person I know is being treated for it).

But when I focus on the (increasingly few, it seems) things I have control over, I do pretty well:

1. During lab this afternoon there was a long "down" period of waiting around. Some people left to study or to go grab a late lunch; a few stuck around to talk but I kind of excused myself and sat down and graded the exams I gave today. (Granted, it was fewer than 15 papers, but still...) I got them all graded. That's a huge relief as I was looking at this week and going ???? when I tried to schedule a time outside of class to grade them.

I ALSO, after that was done, washed up some horrible crusty beakers that were leftovers of an experiment that didn't work out.

2. I had a student that I thought had dropped....she had e-mailed me a scan of a doctor's note when she had the flu, but then she didn't come back, so I figured "She decided she had missed too much and just dropped." (We don't get any notification this early in the semester unless we actually go and check our online official rosters, which I don't do often). She came back today. Asked if I got her second e-mail. I told her I got the doctor's note but nothing later. And she took a deep breath and said she had been afraid of that, it happened with the e-mail she sent another prof.

Someone very close to her had died and she had been gone last week picking up the pieces of that. I believe her, because she started crying (and it wasn't that awful fake-cry some people do) as she was trying to explain. I was on my way in to give the exam at that very moment so I told her to go take a deep breath, have some lunch, and come back and talk to me in lab, that we could work something out.

Anyway, she came back and was calmer. She'll be ready for the exam in a day or so - so I just don't hand the (just-graded) exams back. And I made arrangements for her to take care of another missed assignment.

I suppose there is a tiny outside chance she was "playing" me, but I really think not based on her reactions. So I feel like I did what I could to "prevent the brokenness from spreading further" today with that. My general reaction in situations like that is to remain very calm and very quiet and to let the person speak and then to reassure them that most things can be fixed. Because really, most things involving academia CAN, and if someone is bereaved it helps them to be reminded of that. (I know that was my experience, losing a grandmother and an aunt both while I was in college)

The thing is, I don't think I'm an unusually "good" or wise or whatever person - I just go by "what would I want to have happen to me, if the positions were reversed?" and it seems frustrating to me that there are a lot of people who don't operate that way (and that I saw some people like that earlier in the day). Because it's so freaking EASY. It seems so simple to me to ask myself, "If I were in her shoes, what would make me feel better; what does this person need right now?" Granted, what makes me feel better in a situation might not work ideally for everyone, but it's better than not treating the other person like a fellow human being.