Good and bad

Tomorrow is my next furlough day. I'm thinking about being a rule breaker (breakin the law! breakin the law! uh huh huh huh huh) and grading during it because I have a (forgive the language) crapton of grading to do, and little time in which to do it.

I'm tired out and kind of sad and was kind of stressed out. During my office hours today, which I had been hoping to use to get a jump on the paper-grading, a student came in. This is someone retaking one of my classes to improve their grade and they are very, very, very uptight about it. And when **I** say someone is too uptight - well, if they're uptight by comparison with me, that's pretty darn uptight.

They took nearly my entire office hours wanting them to quiz them over exam material. I did it, because students are our real priority and all, but I couldn't help thinking that back in MY student days, the prof would likely have snarled "Find someone in the class to be your study buddy" and turned me out of their office.

So that made me tense going in to the exam. And then after it, trying to grab lunch in the 45 minutes before lab....I closed my door for privacy.....a student called up wanting to know what was going to be on the lab quiz so I had to talk on the phone while eating.

So no grading then.

So then the same student met me in the hall on the way to lab wanting to know if I had started grading the exams. Um, no, because I was on the phone with you most of my lunch break? The only break between the exam and now?

I get that people are worried about their grades. I GET it. But crikey.

Then, lab. For one thing, it was a lab that uses very bright lights on every bench to get a reaction going. So there's no escape from the extremely bright light at roughly my eye level. I have sensitive eyes, right? I have 40 watt bulbs in most of the fixtures at home, right? So it's painful for me to be in the room with all these bright lamps shining right at me.

And then I find out that again, my TA is being pulled out to fill in another class where someone was absent. And yeah, yeah, I get I should be flattered that they know I'm competent enough to handle a lab all on my own, but DANG. This is a lab that leads to a lot of stress because it's fiddly, and the fiddliness means that it doesn't always succeed EVEN IF the student's technique is good. And we ran short of answer sheets for the quiz. And we were low on one of the supplies (this is the last lab of the week). And one particular person kept stopping me and asking me questions and needing my time and I admit at one point I felt that familiar prickling behind my eyes that comes when I'm really frustrated, and the Sixth Emotion* - in my case, Sense of Control - grabbed the console and said "Uh-uh. NO. None of that. You are not allowed to cry in lab. Yes everything's broken and you're tired and this particular student is on your last nerve but you have to suck it up." and I did.

(*Reference to Inside Out, but I think they may have missed a few emotions/brain functions there)

And then I realized: tomorrow is Furlough Day. I'm technically not supposed to grade but I need to grade because there's no time next week to grade and what the heck do I do and I have piano lesson this evening AND I have to clean up the house a little when I first get home so it doesn't look too awful for my teacher and and and.....and the prickling behind my eyes again.

And earlier, I had thought of running to Braum's for a frozen yogurt (shut up, I like their frozen yogurt, maybe even better than the ice cream) but then I realized I spend $100 this week on things already (birthday gift for my brother, sandwiches for the college-aged youth group) and I can't really AFFORD it. And yeah, it's a $3 cup of ice cream but I bet tougher people than I have $3-cup-of-ice-creamed their way to bankruptcy, so....

(And yeah, next month when I feed the college kids? They're getting chili or something I can make at home on the cheap, not Subway, which has the virtue of being fast and something most everyone likes but has the vice of being costly)

So argh. Really really done with people and also terribly conflicted about working on a furlough day. All the feels about that. For one thing, it's breaking the "rules" - I'm not supposed to work as I am not being paid. And I feel BAD about breaking rules, even if they are kind of silly and ad-hoc rules. And I also feel really bad that my one real instance of "breaking the rules" is so I can perform a duty and not have fun....it's not like I'm streaking across the football field or breaking into a water park after dark; I'm GRADING.

But that's me, I guess. I'm more Twilight Sparkle than Twilight Sparkle is.

But yeah, it was weird in lab. I've never been that close to tears in lab before, or that close to just wanting to run screaming out of the room (but not being able to). I've not come quite that close to Total Meltdown in a long time.

I probably should have gone visit my parents on Spring Break. I don't doubt they'd have paid for my ticket if I had asked. And I would have gotten away from here, and maybe rested a bit more, and I would have (most importantly) been fussed over a little. I think I'm suffering from a deficiency of being fussed over - mostly when I'm by myself I'm just gritting my teeth and pushing on and really, fussing-over is like tickling: you can't do it to yourself and have it work. (And right now, the people at church who most fuss over me are either kind of incapacitated themselves, or are worried/taken up with more important things, so).

(I almost cried a little when talking to my mom over the phone during break, and she commented on how when I came up in May, she'd make a "make up" birthday cake for me, since I didn't get one for my birthday and wasn't there to share my dad's.)

So yeah. I'm just really worn and frayed but I have to keep pushing on, because there's nothing else to be done.

The three bright spots in all of this:

Tomorrow is Furlough Day so I don't have to get up at 4:30 am to make time to work out; I can sleep in and work out when I feel like it during the day.

My piano lesson went well.

And, I found out that the person let go from my department was hired to teach science in a high school that is closer to where she lives than we are, so she has less of a commute and may even make more money come fall (seeing as she was "TFT" which isn't paid all that well here). It still stinks to lose her but I'm glad she landed on her feet.

But cripes, I'm tired. I might still try to grade those exams tonight.

Am on the fence about ice cream though.....I tell myself I can't afford it but you know? Maybe at this point it almost counts as *medicine* given the day I had.