A random thought

You know how there are supposedly computer programs that will take a  photo of you, and change it so you can have a look at what you might look like with a different haircut or hair color? And how there are simulation programs that allow scientists to do things like predict the effects building a dam would have on an area?

They need one for careers. I really would love to do a simulation program to prove to myself right now that, no, I would not have been happier becoming a reference librarian or a patent attorney or working in a yarn shop or any of the other million things that sounds more attractive than grading papers and writing finals.

I don't even really feel like a scientist any more. I saw some advertising for some conferences and was like, whoa, what they do is so far above what I do. What I do is nothing.

A couple of random things I wish:

1. That I could give in to Rarity-esque drama queening ("Of all the worst things that could happen, this is the Worst. Thing. Ever.) and have it actually have some kind of useful effect. I'm reading some of these assignments and muttering about the decline and death of the English language and the ability to think critically. It's more fun, I think, to wail and moan and make a lot of noise than it is to do grumpy-aging-person grumbling. I think, though, for drama queening to have a useful effect, you have to have an adoring Spike hanging around, and I don't.

2. That I could just go and get a dang pizza for lunch. Or a fried chicken sandwich. Or something where I could just go into a restaurant and order food and damn the sodium, full speed ahead. Instead of doing what I will probably do, and go home and have the Home Version of the sad desk lunch (probably a plain salad and some kind of heated-up vegetable). 

3. To be able to stop dreading things. It's something I do, ironically, I think it started as a defense mechanism: if I expect the worst, I will be pleased when anything short of it happens. But the thing is, every thing I mark down on a student paper (which I have to do, to be doing my job), I can imagine them coming and contesting the grade or complaining at me or something.

4. For my metabolism or biorhythm or whatever it is to shift back to where I can get to SLEEP at 9 or 10 pm and then bounce out of bed at 4:30 or 5 am like I used to, instead of lying awake a long time and then feeling like I just got to sleep when the alarm goes off.