I got nothing

It's still hot. They keep extending the heat advisory out for more days. It's hot in most of the middle of the country.

This is just the long slog of the summer. I don't remember being so *tired* teaching summers before but I must have been - we've had other hot summers, I've always had a schedule much like what I am teaching now. (I suppose part of it is concern over getting my poster done and printed - the meetings are week after next - and just all of the logistics involved therein. I have my train tickets but if there are any delays getting up and coming back it will be an issue).

I am also slightly disappointed to see how little time there is between the end of summer and the start of fall semester. Just about 10 days. Because for us, fall semester starts with a couple days of meetings (actually four days, or the better part of four days: two half-days of symposia, a day of campus wide meetings, and a day of departmental meetings). Fall starts on August 15, and while in a way it will be nice to get back to a "normal" schedule and also to have my colleagues back around, it seems awfully early for it to start.

A lot of days lately I get home, and all I really have energy for is to read or watch tv or faff around on the internet. I thought about starting a new project or at least finishing the Party Cannon socks last night, but didn't feel like it. (The new project amuses me, so I want to start it soon: I thought of the idea of making a Pony-styled horse called Horsey McHorseface. I think I mentioned this before? I just need to start it, though)

I definitely like cooler weather better. Even with airconditioning (which I have been keeping set at 76, which seems a reasonable compromise between comfort and overworking the poor unit) I don't sleep all that well. I wake up at about 2 am too warm.

I think some of my malaise is the fact that I'm teaching such long hours. Four day weeks at double speed are no joke. I know there's been talk of several different "flexibility" things during the regular semester here - one being eight-week classes. They are doing this already with some online classes but I could see it being done with face-to-face, but golly, what an effort for that eight weeks. Especially if you were pushed to teach one each half of the semester. Another thing has been talk of a four-day week. That would be great for some departments but for those of us who teach labs it would not be so great - we'd be teaching evening labs to get everything covered, so we'd likely have four, twelve-hour (or at least, twelve hours on campus) days rather than forty hours a week like the expectation is. And I'm not convinced a full extra day off makes up for longer days the rest of the week because I really desire a full day to recover after four intensive days, before I can even THINK of working on research or something. I don't know; it seems as I get older I require more time to recuperate from brainwork. (Last weekend helped because I had two full days off even as I put in two full days working on textbook chapter stuff.)

I hear a lot of people talking about "the end of retirement" and the idea, apparently, that people should work until....I don't know, 80 or something? Because work is no longer physically taxing like digging ditches or plowing fields with a mule. I don't know. I find I do get awfully tired - intellectually tired - and that seems to get worse as time wears on. I can't imagine still doing this 30+ years from now. (Though who knows? We're one stock market crash away from me having to. I don't count on there being social security for me....)

I think that expecting "everyone" will work until a very old age is as presumptuous as having mandatory retirements at 60 or 65 like some industries used to. Everyone ages at a different rate, everyone burns out at a different rate. I would be totally burned out from doing this at 80. Shoot, I might be at 70, which is the age at which my parents retired. There just seem to be a lot more slings and arrows in daily life than I expected....curveballs we get thrown, things we get asked to do we weren't expecting to have to. Doing more with less.

(I also find it harder to recover from intellectual/emotional tiredness than from the physical kind. A day spent working in the field or working on my own yard, I can take a hot shower and sleep a night and I'm good for the next day. A day or two of hard brainwork, or even just difficult human interactions, and a night's sleep isn't going to fix that.)

This could also be bad allergies; all of a sudden mine seem to have gotten worse. Some grass that bugs me is probably flowering, and because of budget cuts there has been a lot less mowing on campus of late, and a couple of my neighbors are apparently testing out the "how high can the grass be before the city comes after you" question....it's not good for me though because I find my concentration tanking mid class, I find myself groping for words or getting forgetful, which are all signs of bad allergies for me - it's like working in a bit of a fog.