Monday, October 31, 2016

It went south

ETA: And the rancid cherry on the cruddy sundae of today? My campus is in the news for an "anti Black Lives Matter protest" that "turned violent." I don't know details but the blurb on the local news sounds fairly bad and the letter the president sent out is much calmer ("We let them come because freedom of speech but campus police stepped in when things got out of hand and too many people congregated and we couldn't ensure their safety") but this is going to come back to bite us. Further mandated sensitivity training for faculty, heigh-ho. (Even though none of us were there).

I'm just....stick a fork in me, I'm done. I'm BEYOND done. There's so much ugliness and hate in the world right now and I don't want to be a part of it. I know we're called to be a force for love but everything I do is so small and is so overwhelmed by the ugliness that honestly? Being some kind of a hermit looks increasingly appealing. I'm tired, y'all. I keep trying and nothing ever seems to get any better.

This has not been a very good day.

I joked (somewhat bitterly) after all the stuff happened, that maybe I needed to put away the little Squirrel Nutkin, make myself a sash reading VOTES FOR WOMEN, and go as Peeved Suffragist because that would fit my mood better.

First off: I swept one of the little glass jars I use for carrying yogurt in my lunch off the counter and it broke. It can be replaced, but I have to find a place still selling the little pint canning jars this late in the year. And I had to sweep it up.

Also, seeing in the hat is hard and I almost clipped my neighbor's car (once again parked too close to my drive). I DIDN'T, but it was close. (Next week. Next week we'll be back on Standard Time and it will actually be light when I leave the house).

The biggest thing, though? I prepped teaching the students SPSS. That was ALL I prepped. I figured because it was available on my office computer that meant it had been restored everywhere on campus.

Well, you know what they say when you assume stuff. (Yeah. I should have walked over to the lab last week and tested it out).

Nope. No SPSS. Not on any of the computers. I was embarrassed. And what's more, I was angry - they had TOLD us we were getting it back. Had I been lied to about that, and they figured I'd not find out? Or had some oversight happened? Anyway, I had nothing new prepared, so I handed back the exam and let them go early. Which felt really bad.

I called the IT people. They flailed a bit. Then, later, I got an e-mail stating that we had been "overlooked" in the re-install. (We often ARE overlooked in technical matters; we are a slight distance from the rest of campus and are often forgotten). They're supposed to come and do it this week, but who knows? So I get to change up all my plans of how I was going to teach this week.

Of course that derailed me emotionally. I do not deal well with sudden big changes and I don't deal well with the ONE time I depend on something to be okay, it not being. So I didn't get much done the rest of the morning. I'm going to try to fix that this afternoon by finishing some overhang grading and by checking my plants and practicing my talk and getting home at a decent hour to do more piano practice but yeah. I almost thought, "Forget saving money, I'm ordering myself some yarn" but then I thought of how much I had at home and I also thought of this video I saw the other day pointing out that something like 5.6 billion people in the world manage on less than $5 (USD) per day, and tried to get over myself.

Also, I will be glad when the election is over and especially the channels hyping how their coverage is going to be "So great, like the greatest ever" about it.

Oh well. At least the Cubs are still hanging in the World Series, at least for now.

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