Wednesday morning complaints

*Is this a cold or isn't it? My throat is still scratchy, I have a dry cough (enough that I had a cramp/spasm in an intercostal muscle last night, which then led me down the path of OH CRAP I'M HAVING CHEST PAIN. I decided to apply heat and see if it got better before calling for help (or, more likely, driving myself to the ER).

Yeah, it was a cramp. The heat made it go away.

I think I've got some cherry-honey cough drops over here, I probably better employ a few today. It doesn't help that parts of the building are now up around 90 F.

* I think part of my concern over the possible overload in the fall is that in addition to the gormless students who just don't bother to prepare that I complained about earlier, there are a couple of people in my classes who TRY to be prepared, but just have so much bad luck and so much drama in their lives (not all of their own making) that there is just this constant stream of things that need to be dealt with.

As it was once noted in a Joan of Arcadia episode (and I'm still sad that was only a 2-season show), everything you do has ripples. They can be bad or good. And sometimes the people affected are people quite far away from the person who caused the ripple - so someone you don't even know of the existence of can be affected in  a bad way by your selfish action. I've seen that happen.

I don't know. People get me down, dealing with big masses of people get me down, because about 5% of people are going to have some kind of major issue that prevents their life from going smoothly, and maybe another 5% are going to be super-crazy-entitlement-mentality and drive everyone crazy when they don't get what they want. And while that's okay in a group of 20, when you get up around 200 people (which is the number of students I could have, total, this coming fall), it becomes difficult to manage. This is why on larger campuses TAs are often used as the gatekeepers - to keep some of the worse problems away from the professors. We don't have that luxury, so the professors wind up, as I said as confessors/counselors/substitute parents or "big siblings"/cheerleaders/etc. And I find that my energy for that kind of thing is limited, and I also often find myself in the position of being leaned on to give reassurance to others, when I really would like some myself, but none is forthcoming.

* Also, we are facing some kind of a budget cut this fall. And that led to a discussion of the phrase "do more with less," which is a phrase I hate with a fairly intense passion. Much of the reason I hate it is that it is generally bandied about without any suggestion as to HOW. ("Work smarter, not harder" is another one like this - tell me how to do that, please? The one person I know who talked about working "smarter and not harder" was someone who was actually deluding himself, IMHO: he was actually doing less than what was really expected and was not fulfilling the requirements of his job, and he felt all smug because he was working less than those of us who took it more seriously).

Being told to "do more with less" by the legislature feels a lot to me like the line from James (which the sermon this Sunday was based on:) "Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.If one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?" It's all well and good to deliver platitudes but when someone in a secure position delivers them to someone in a less-secure position without any concrete suggestions for help, it's empty. And annoying. 

(Another phrase I hate is "the new normal" because to me that smacks of "Life stinks now and that's just how it is; accept it.") 

* I don't know about trying to find a new piano teacher for fall. Part of me wants to say, "Don't do it with the overload; just take a break and focus on your job." But I was thinking last night, "Wow, that's kind of the sound of a dream being allowed to die." So I don't know. (Part of this is probably my impending 45th birthday - I found myself going, "What do 'normal' 45 year old women dream about doing? Probably having grandkids, maybe being able to travel with their SO after SO retires...." I don't really know what to dream about. New research project? I confess, I mainly do research because it's expected of me - it doesn't excite me greatly the way it seems to some of my colleagues. And playing piano publicly is something that's never gonna happen - I have to face the fact that I will never be good enough, even if I could master the stage fright. Learn to spin? I don't have time. I don't even knit up most of the yarn I have now....Travel? I don't like traveling all that much (traveling alone kind of stinks; any problem that happens seems far worse because you're alone) I remind myself that there will be time AFTER this fall is over to do stuff but I do tend to get stuck in the one-inch picture frame.  My family asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I realized that the things I REALLY wanted - more free time, fewer responsibilities (because other people are willing to step up and take some of them on), stuff like my friend being cured of her leukemia and the son of a family friend being cured of his cancer - are things no one can get for me, and that makes me sad. I don't need more fabric or books or yarn; I don't have time to enjoy the ones I have right now. 

* And then finally, while I'm complaining and feeling sorry for myself, I want to talk about parking lots built with a fairly steep incline to get out of them. Why do people DO this? I hate sitting and waiting on the incline for it to be safe to pull out because I'm afraid that if someone pulls too close behind me, and I take my foot off the brake to pull forward, and I slip back *just a little* (because of the incline, and because I don't like doing "jackrabbit starts"), I'll hit the other person. Also, the inclines often make it harder to see clearly up and down the road you're pulling out on to.  The grade needs to be more gradual; people who make parking-lot exits with steep inclines should have their engineer's licenses, or designer's licenses, or whatever, taken away. I don't care if people think it looks cool; I don't care if it would cost more to make a more gradual grade. I'm less likely to want to park somewhere where it feels hazardous to leave.