Needing attitude adjustment

I need to get down to work (either reading for fall classes or cleaning the prep room) but I'm in sort of a bad mood:

- the possibility of another revenue failure in my state is looming (The last one led to the 2016 layoffs and furlough days)

- worry that this may cascade into RIFfing people, and it will become a version of "Survivor" and I might lose out because I chose to update my teaching rather than do research and publish this summer.

- OU's claim that they're now a billion in debt, which sounds like a beg for more money from the state, and seeing as we're the dogs under OU's table, I can only assume that means fewer crumbs for us. (I have a suspicion that this may have been the past administration's doing, I think they did a lot of construction on campus? But yeah, them's that got shall have so I would not be surprised to see all the rest of us get cut appropriations to help out the pretty and famous "flagship" school)

- Just the general looming badness in the world and the fact that there are many complicated and long-term problems that don't have simple solutions even though people are demanding such, and if you even breathe a hint that maybe the problem is more complicated, that marks you as a Bad Person. And what seems to be an ever-accelerating polarization. I would not be surprised if I saw a "hot" civil war (I think we are already in a "cold" one, at least in some locales) in my lifetime.

- A creeping sense of futility that whatever good I can do in the world is ultimately meaningless. (I wish I could break on through and stop caring, and start saying "If nothing I do matters, then the only thing that matters is my own happiness" and go selfish, because this point - stuck between the dying idealism and resigned selfishness is a Hell of a place to be).

(Mental picture is of one of the "bad timelines" in the movie Scrooged, where the idealistic Claire - Frank Cross' off-again, on-again girlfriend - has ditched her charity work and become a Lady Who Lunches, and she quotes to an equally vapid friend the line Frank told her about "Step up and scrape 'em off, Claire." I.....don't think I could go there myself. I don't think I could will myself to stop caring and that's the Hell of it: how do you live with knowing that no good you do really matters, but still wanting to do good?)

And yes, I am sure some of this is the typical Black Dog I experience in summers, made worse this year because I don't have a research student - for one thing, I felt like "the end result of this is I get a publication and also I get to have helped a student publish," for another, she was such a relentlessly POSITIVE person that it made me feel better after meeting with her. This year, she's off working to earn money - and may not even be able to afford to come back this fall - and I'm alone almost all the time. And yes, that's part of my bad mood, that a good student and a good person, because of financial reasons, may be prevented from finishing.)

But yeah. I need to get something done.

My colleague e-mailed me and told me I could dispose of a couple pieces of his abandoned stuff but "I hurt my arm so I can't lift anything" and YES OF COURSE IT IS THAT WAY. (I don't think I'm strong enough to lift one of the items. I sent an e-mail around saying "Hey we have these things, can your lab use them, if you don't speak up by next week they are going in the trash").

(Actually, a lot of times? I risk hurting myself because I just want to get stuff done and no one is available to help so I just lift the thing or move the thing. I'm hurting a little bit today because I think I over did it lifting buckets of soil to dump that were a little heavy for me)

But yeah. Probably what I really need is a long day out and away somewhere. Somewhere far away with mostly things like antique shops. But I have stuff I must do and also I am trying to save money. (Alternatively: take Friday and just go hide in my sewing room and see if I can finish the current top)


***

Well, I'm giving myself an "An attempt was made" gold star.

First up. The issue of the doors that are set to slam shut if you are not holding them open. I found by wedging meter sticks in the top hinge, I was able to hold the doors open. This is surely a deeply illegal move, but as I only did it for the length of time I was moving stuff into the cabinet, I think it was probably OK.

Then I realized the ridged plastic "catch pan" that sits on the shelf is useless when you have small reagent bottles- the ridges make the bottles tip over (A larger bottle would sit over at least 2 ridges and be stable). So I asked my chair (I figure it's better to ask and get official permission, than just do it and later be told "No put it back") and she said it was okay to remove the catchpan.

So I moved all my chemicals in. There is a little space left so now I have to seek out (using the cryptic descriptions from the e-mail) all of my colleague's chemicals and move THEM.

(And all the while I am thinking: why is it that so many people seem to conveniently get injured when there's work to be done?)

Then I have to put away glassware. I have a bit more room now, having emptied the cupboard the chemicals were in. But. I really want a couple of small bins to easily store the extraction vials and the colorimeter vials. We do not have any small bins. The budget is currently closed so no money can be spent (until July at least) on them.

I am considering running to Mart of Wal and seeing if they have small bins with either Hello Kitty or My Little Pony on them because if I'm buying my own darn storage bins, they should look like I want them to look.

I am also irked at all the former students from last semester who didn't actually do the cleanup I asked them to do. I carted another big bucket (5 gallon size) full of soil samples they were supposed to throw away out to the dumpster and made my bad shoulder click in the process.