* It took me nearly 10 minutes to fight my poster into its carrying tube. (This is a large cardboard tube - about 3" in diameter by a bit over 3' long). It distresses me sometimes how the simpler tasks are the ones that nearly defeat me.
* It probably would have been easier if someone had been around to help me, but right now we're down to me and the secretary - everyone else is gone. It really does feel like "The Last Man On Earth" without the cringey comedy and lack of basic necessities.
* I just hope Amtrak doesn't throw a fit over my bringing a 3' long poster tube on board. I can't check bags where I am leaving from and anyway, I would NOT check my poster, as it is the raison d'etre for the entire trip and it would be a disaster if it got lost.. I guess I load the poster onto a flashdrive and take that as a backup in case some officious sort tells me either the poster stays in Mineola, or both the poster and I stay in Mineola....though I'd hate having to scramble to find a place to print a poster at the last minute in a town I've not lived in for more than 15 years.
* I'm just not feeling this trip. Part of it is I still feel bad about ducking out on a week of summer classes even though in one class I'm effectively done with the material, and in the other one, I'm almost as far as I get most years (could still do the soil taxonomy stuff if there's time but I often do not get to it during the regular semester). Part of it is it's just hot, it will be hot the whole time I'm traveling. Part of it is "unrest" and I don't like leaving my little town when it feels like the whole nation is upset about stuff (it's practically the political conventions, too, isn't it? Not that I will be anywhere near either one, thank God). Too many sad things happening right now.
* My secretary has a grown son who is a local sheriff's deputy. He was in to say hi to her this afternoon (I know him *very* slightly, enough to say hi to). He was wearing a black band across his badge....maybe law enforcement everywhere is doing it because of Dallas, I don't know, but it kind of struck me.
* Also the fact that when I get back, there's another week of class, then just over a week of break, and then it's back.....for mandatory meetings. And then classes start for the fall, and I think we all kind of have an overload because there's no GA....I have not checked the listings yet to see if I have one or two intro labs but am bracing to have two. (so: two intro lectures, biostats, ecology, lab for ecology, and two intro labs.) We start on the 15th which just feels too early. It will be hot.It always feels like FOREVER until the first little break (Labor Day). (I remember the first year I was here, looking at the calendar the first week, seeing how long until Labor Day, and just putting my head down on my desk and crying a little. Because I was already so tired.)
* Part of it that I know this trip will not be a "fun" trip, pretty much the whole time will be spent in meetings and as a graduate of the lab of the person who organized it, I may well be tapped at the last minute to take something else on, like judging student presentations, and I can't graciously say no to things like that.....and I am just so tired of all the responsibility I carry. (And this week is Board Meeting, and Friday before I leave town I have to get blood drawn because I have a checkup shortly after I get back, and I have to still plan what I'm going to have the students do while I"m out of town and my vision of having really extra super detailed enrichment stuff has gone away, replaced by, "meh, I'll post the Powerpoint images I use in class and tell them to use the textbook" and that so feels like I'm phoning it in, even as I remind myself I'm (a) being paid adjunct wages for this and (b) the classes are really small and are mostly fairly responsible people. And when I get back I have to update the AAUW book. And and and....it never ends. Now I see why the people who retired this year so flatly refused to take on responsibilities; they finally saw an out. I.....may do the same thing if I make it to retirement (or if I'm even ABLE to retire))
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