Friday morning things

* I'm surprised at how....sad....I feel over hearing about Cassini plunging into Saturn's atmosphere and burning up. (I probably anthropomorphize inanimate objects too much, though that's probably why I can still derive comfort from my stuffed animals in the absence of being able to have a "real" pet).

It's too bad David Bowie is gone; I could imagine him writing an elegiac piece about Cassini.

* Did my annual review yesterday. Well, I wrote it up - the meeting comes later. (I presume - I HOPE - I will get "outstanding" on scholarly productivity this year, given two papers in press and a third in review, and the award I won). My teaching evals were not too shabby this year - in the A range, if we were figuring up percentages in the same grading scale I use (and, presuming one can do those kinds of calculations on Likert scale date, which one really cannot). I'm still weak (by university standards) on service, but right now that's kind of out of my hands (I asked to be put on another committee but was not).

I dunno. I still kind of hate doing these things. I don't want to cry after doing them any more but I do see where I could have done better and that irks me. But then again I also look at the yarn I've not knit up or the quilts I've not made because I was pushing to do some work or volunteer thing instead. It's hard to win. I know someone who's gone to a "work smarter not harder" model that kind of demi-butts* everything, and I just can't do that, that's not me. I give too hard a darn about things and about doing things RIGHT.

(* the most polite euphemism for half-*ssed I can come up with this early)

* I'm still sick of the jokey memes about how college is so much easier than high school, and how professors are either stoners/drunks or are so far more committed to their research that they cancel class for it. I realize I probably invest too much of myself in my career, but it annoys me.

It also annoys me because I graded the first batch of exams and they were....not good. College is NOT easier than high school, at least not in STEM. Yes, I didn't have to work OVERLY hard my first year of college, but I went to a rigorous prep school (we learned stuff in intro chem most of my classmates had not had - I remember some of the reaction-rate calculations, I set up a study group to re-teach it to the people who lived in the dorm with me, because I'd had it before and understood it, and a lot of them were confused).

Also, I (once) had a professor who was an alcoholic and it is rare but it's also sad and maddening and everything else, and I confess the humorless part of me is annoyed by the gag.

(I'm also annoyed by the "I'm hungover, class is cancelled" because I remember once teaching with a migraine because class HAD to meet that day and I could think of no other options. I gave a break midway because I seriously thought I was going to have to go to the restroom and vomit - I did not, but still).

I suppose maybe they grew out of R1 schools where profs do tend to take teaching less seriously than research, I don't know. But I find it distinctly annoying and I feel like, "We don't need to give any more fodder to those who would totally defund higher ed in the hopes of making it go away, or making it be only for an exclusive elite who can afford the private schools"

I'm especially annoyed seeing it on a Friday, when I've pushed hard all week (and had two evening meetings, though those were church meetings) and really the only knitting I did was while invigilating an exam.

* Also this (this is an Awkward Yeti comic) is relevant to a lot of things I am feeling right now:

* I need to finish the editing this weekend so I guess it's another week of relying on Mart of Wal or Pruett's for foods rather than going to Sherman. (Sigh). It seems like already this fall has been way busier than others. Probably the fault of the new class, which causes regular minor freakouts over not being prepared "enough" and also having to go back and do a LOT of re-reading.

(This afternoon is weeding, and then I have to decide whether I go straight home to wash my hair - the ragweed pollen is very bad now - and take the exam I am giving TODAY and grade it, or if I wait until evening to wash my hair and stay over here and do the editing. I don't know. I want to wash my hair right away because I can tell my allergies are bad - woke up with a sore throat today - but also I am fearful that some weekends are when the site I need to use goes down for maintenance, it was that way one weekend. Maybe I wash my hair and come back here? I don't know)

* I think I need to start a new project some time, am feeling doldrummy and maybe a new knitting or sewing project would help.