Comedy of errors (II)

I am in my office. Yes, my first event starts at 11 or so, but I have grading and research reading and I also had a vision of some bright light thinking, "Hey, why don't we block off the biology faculty lot for overflow parking?" (I should have guessed they would not, as it is too far: we are a quarter-mile from the rest of campus)

I did quickly pull in to the main building where stuff is going on and got my packets, so at least I avoid having to walk over in the rain. I will have to walk (or drive) back over there to turn in my results.

But yeah. It's already not a good day: it's bucketing down rain, I have seen many students whose projects are already soaked (I really feel for the kids who are doing projects instead of taking an exam, like my section is doing). I had four or five kids nearly run into me as I was trying to get into/out of the building, but at least one of them had misted-over glasses. But yeah. All my introvert alarm bells are going of and that makes things bad: I really dislike crowds of unfamiliar people.

And my umbrella is broken. I could not get it to stay closed and had to kind of tear up my hand (on the ribs) holding it closed, and then it didn't want to open and I've only had this for a couple years and not used it that much and WHYYY can they not make an umbrella that breaks so easily? (Probably the answer is: they can, but no local stores sell them, because they are expensive and everyone is either broke or cheap so instead they buy the crummy weak umbrellas and then replace them every six months. Maybe I need to find a British men's haberdashery and buy myself a PROPER umbrella, even if it costs $200)

And then I sat down to gear up for research-reading by doing a little grading, and one of my colleagues comes running in: "Can you proctor one of my tests, my TA never showed up" and I admit I audibly groaned because really, Universe, is it not enough I am giving up four hours of my day to be involved with testing? but I went. Fortunately as I got down there the TA showed up but yeah, I would not be surprised if some people either can't get in, or flake out, and I'm glad I'm not in the main building where I surely WOULD get grabbed to help out.

The weather is the worst part of this. If it were sunny and 60 degrees I would be a lot cheerier but it's rained all week long, I'm having to take alternate routes around town because of streets flooding, and it's just miserable. I smell like wet wool because I'm wearing a sweater (And I changed clothes once because I saw myself in a mirror at home and thought "You look weird and the kids will think you are weird and will not respect you" and yes I am very nearly 49 but have been so damaged by my junior-high experience 35 years ago that I still care what a bunch of kids might think.).

Someone on ITFF who has also done this claims "It's a good Science Olympiad if no one cries" but I'm almost at the point of it having been a bad one for me.

Added: I don't even know how many teams to expect. I have 12 exams ready, the list has 22 teams, a colleague tells me there won't be that many but what on earth do I do if I have 13 or 14 teams show up? The time on these things is tight enough I don't have TIME to copy many more exams if it comes down to that. I am not, however, going to fight our fractious office copier to make the 10 more exams I MIGHT need if all the teams send someone.

This is....kind of ridiculous. I need more information than I've been given to function well, but no one seems to care about that. Once again, I have to be the grown up and squash down my misgivings and discomforts and feelings and just do the thing, and nobody cares. NOBODY CARES. that's one thing these past few years have taught me: no one with any power to make my life happier in a material way* cares enough about me or whether or not I'm happy and functional. Everyone is selfish except for chumps like me.

(*Excepting friends who send cards or gifts, and they should not have to do that. I am talking about legislators and others with power who could make my job a little less complex or a little less worrisome. I get that my own happiness is my responsibility, but neither should people with power throw roadblocks in my way to make my life harder.)

And my lunch today, instead of tea and some kind of nice warm tidbit I prepare at home, is once again cold yogurt and fruit, because my plan is to be up here until I can go home for good. (I have my reading and my grading and also some knitting). But I wish there were more things in my life these days I was doing because I deeply wanted to do them, and fewer things I was doing because I felt I SHOULD be doing them.

I also found out a new committee I volunteered for met, but I didn't know about the meeting because I hadn't been added to the e-mail list, but I don't think anyone can blame me for not having been there because it's not like those meetings are widely publicized :(

I need a hug, but there are many things in this life I feel like I need but know I won't get.

Edited to add: it occurs to me that a lot of my frustration and upset-ness about this whole thing is that I feel a total lack of control in it....I didn't really have a choice whether to do it or not, because I was the "logical" person to do it, no schoolteacher was stepping up to do it (and given what they are paid in my state, they should not have to give up a Saturday. Even less than I should have to), I've received precious little information of the sort I need to do an optimal job, information is slow in coming (I just found out last night that I did NOT have to be here at 7 am), and some information is lacking (e.g., number of teams to expect) and all of that combines to work on all of my anxieties - "What if I do a bad job because I don't have the right information, but I still get blamed and looked at as being incompetent because I did a bad job?" Granted, perhaps the biggest real-world implication of me doing a bad job is I DON'T get asked to do this next year, which is actually a reward*.

But yeah. All of the flaws of this set-up are exactly the things that are crazy-making for me, and that manifests as grumpiness and a feeling of "why do I have to be doing this? Some of my colleagues are still at home in bed today, or are out having fun, and I won't even GET a weekend and will be exhausted and cranky come Monday."

(*I think of - was it Jonas Salk who said "The reward for good work is more work." I don't think he meant it bitterly but in our new, "do more with  less" world, it does seem like people who are high achievers get more work dumped on them)