Saturday, February 08, 2014

Week was long

Last week seemed really long to me, despite us having a snow day on Monday. (We could have opened at noon. We really could have. The roads were clear by then)

(We may have another one THIS Monday, if the predicted weather comes in. Which is why I'm abandoning my plans to set up Monday afternoon's lab stuff this morning, and wait until Monday morning (if the university is open. I'm really kind of ready to be done with winter weather. Rain I can put up with - we need rain - but this iffy "might rain, might snow, might ice" - no thanks).

I suppose it's because of the two long days (Wednesday - I was on campus from 7 am until just before 7 pm, and Thursday I was on campus from 7 am to about 6. AAUW WAS cancelled (bad weather) but that means I now have three evening meetings next week, ugh.). I really need alone-time to recharge and feel normal again.

Nicole asked over on her blog if she was becoming more antisocial over time (in the sense of not wanting to bother to go out and interact with people). I still want to interact, sometimes. (I like the people I go to church with and I like the people in AAUW and I like my colleagues) but people get to be too much for me sometimes and spending 12 hours or more in a day around them really drains me.

And going out in the evening, more and more, I think about how I'd really prefer to be tucked up in bed, reading. Especially in the weather we've been having.

I don't know. I guess not many people start their workday at 7 am, so being just DONE by 7 pm isn't a thing. (Well, truth be told: usually 7 am to 8 am is spent checking e-mail and non-work related stuff. But I'm vertical, I'm dressed, I'm here - and that means something). Though more likely the being DONE by 7 pm and not wanting to do anything more is a function of getting up around 4:30 to work out.

The problem is, if I want to have any kind of a social life, it mostly happens after 7 pm.

***

Last night was spent grading a first paper for one particular class.

I will just observe: that I can't tell if people are banking on my allowing a rewrite and just didn't put much effort in (however, their rewrite and their first-paper grades will be AVERAGED, and they knew that, so a horrible grade on paper 1 cannot be salvaged by a good grade on paper 2) or if they've just never ever done any scientific writing and have no clue what's expected.

Oh, there were a couple of good papers, but most of the class...whoa. I'm hoping it was "let's see what we can get by the prof" (most of them have not had me before, but I would think my reputation would precede me) or "Oh damn, I have an exam that day....okay, I can let this slide" rather than a "LOL I have no idea what I'm doing and am not going to bother to find out"

I know it's my job to figuratively grab people by the lapels and haul them up to the level they're expected to work at, but still, "bleeding" all over a paper makes me sad.

(A colleague and I have agitated for years to replace "Senior Seminar" - which is mostly stuff they've already done by that point, like writing their resume - with a Freshman Seminar that would cover things like "how to do a journal article search," "How to evaluate a research article," "How to write an abstract," and similar things. So far it's not been possible but I think it would be an improvement)

***

They ran a marathon of Ponies today. (I was only up in time to catch the Hearts and Hooves day one, which is one of my less-favorite episodes, because I think they missed a BIG moral in it: That it's really perfectly okay for someone NOT to have a "special somepony" on Hearts and Hooves day, and they should not be harassed for that, rather than just "don't interfere in someone trying to find their 'special somepony'"). They also re-ran Equestria Girls, which, as I've said before, I didn't hate, and I think I actually like better upon re-watching. But - do teenage girls really hug and link arms and all that all that much as they showed in the movie? I don't remember hugging very much as a teenaged girl. Okay, maybe if a friend just found out her grandpa died, or if she and her boyfriend broke up - but not just random hugging.

Or maybe I am just a really hands-off person and have always been so, and either my friends were similar, or they recognized my hands-off-ness. I will say now that I tend to get fewer random huggings (like at church) than some people do. Most of the time I'm okay with that, but there are times when I admit I would appreciate a hug, or I feel a little weird when someone's going around hugging everyone else and they wind up shaking my hand instead.

I will say for the new episode this week - again, without going all spoilery, but - it does seem a lot of the writers had similarities in their growing-up experiences to what I had.

This week featured, "Oh, wow, I have a crush on this guy. Wait, he really likes this other girl and I don't exist to him." Oh, all the feels. Oh, have I been there.

(Not quite so much been there with the "I MUST CHANGE MYSELF SO HE WILL LIKE ME." I usually gave up before that point. Which may be partly why I don't have a "special somepony.")

(Also, the phrase "special somepony" makes me kind of gag.)

I suspect, though, that's a pretty common experience. (At least among girls. And perhaps among guys, though I've never really had a male friend who opened up and talked a lot about feelings, so I don't know.)


1 comment:

CGHill said...

I like "special somepony" a lot better than I like "significant other."