And it's Monday

So I found out this morning in my Stats class that I put an unworkable (based on their current skill level and what they'd been exposed to) problem on the take-home exam.

They brought it up right before said exam was due, instead of someone coming to me during the approximate week they had to work on it.

(I just looked at the data set and went, "Oh, it's another mean-variance-standard deviation one" instead of noticing it was a hypothesis-testing one).

So I'm comping them the 10 points. I feel TERRIBLE about that because I don't like the mask to slip and everyone to see what a disorganized, barely-keeping-it-together-mess I am (my house is a mess, at least the non-public rooms, but I am the only one who sees them).

(I also feel terrible because that's something I swore I'd never do, put an untested problem on a stats exam, after my bad stats prof  in grad school did that to us.)

I'll forgive myself for it eventually, just not right now. I still feel terrible about it and I should have been more attentive instead of rushing through and using old questions from an old exam.

Four classes plus a research student are really more than I can handle; I see that. But there's nothing I can do; this is my life now.

But yeah, I do feel terrible about it. I feel some days like my only value as a person is in the work I do, and if that isn't good....well, where does that leave me, then?

I did grade the exams this afternoon though. Some of them were fine, some of them....well, people need to go back and work more on calculating variances and in a couple cases I can't even really see what the person is doing incorrectly and that bugs me, too. I think I'm slipping.

Also, I had to move back the ecology exam and I think some people were displeased (I had to make it a week later) because there's no way in hell I will be able to write one this week (it was to be Friday) and there's not even a review sheet ready.....I told people if they had conflicts I'd be generous about make up times.

But yeah, this has been a hell of a semester and I've not been good about not letting my personal life (worries about my dad; worries about friends) bleed into my work life and make me less efficient and I am kind of beating myself up for that, too. I used to be so GOOD at that. So good at partitioning my work life from my personal life that I could (for example) be going through a break-up and you would NEVER KNOW. I was the Queen of "just keep swimming" and I don't know when or why that changed.

And, okay, to get very personal here about my past....all of the "powerful men being outed as abusers in their youth" and all the women bringing up stories and I have my own, very minor one, from junior high, where a kid, uh, rubbed up against me in a very intrusive and unpleasant way and then made a super-gross joke about it and it was in front of other people and they laughed, and....well, back then I was beaten-down enough by the way people treated me that I never even thought to report it. (Not that it matters any more now; I remember the guy's name but I don't see any value in outing him now). And so all of this made me remember it kind of vividly and it was unpleasant. (And yes, I know, many women have had far, far more intrusive and....body damaging....experiences than that, and I wonder how they deal with it)

(And if I had reported? Doubtless I'd have got either the "boys will be boys" line, or the "just ignore it, honey, and they'll leave you alone" which is the biggest stupidest lie anyone ever told a bullied kid, right after "What are you doing to invite the bullying?")

I dunno. I guess the answer is "everyone has done terrible things in their past and everyone had terrible things done to them and everyone is kind of terrible"

But yeah. I kind of want to crawl in a blanket fort for a while now.

(And it's gross and humid in my office, and that doesn't help at all)

Today was the first of the faculty flu-shot clinics and I was going to go but I'm bordering on a migraine AND I have bell choir tonight and I just don't feel up to it. At least they're running a second one Thursday so I could get my stuff together and go then. I haven't heard yet of people having bad immune responses to this (where you feel dragged out and crummy) but it's still early days and I don't want to risk a bad week when I'm already not feeling great.

AND I got disabilities concerns paperwork on a student today, a MONTH into the semester and one day before the first exam so I sent the exam over to the extended-time place with PROFUSE apologies (even though it really wasn't my fault, still, sometimes they blame the faculty for that kind of thing). They got it, so....I guess? I don't know. I hate how sometimes someone else's inattention makes me look bad, because I can already make myself look bad all by myself (see the above exam story).

It doesn't help that someone I follow on Twitter is doing a "show me the artwork you've done in the last year you're proudest of" thing and I don't even really DO art and I haven't done anything recently I could say I was more than briefly proud of and....it makes me sad and tired. Everything I do feels so ephemeral some days - I grade, and then the next day there's another pile of it. I teach my class and my words are gone into the air and I have to work my energy up to go and teach again the next day. And I'm stuck in one of those loops of feeling like I'm not having much of an impact and feel like my students see me as a bumbler who makes a lot of mistakes and seems unfocused and just isn't very good at things....

Bell Choir is tonight and I admit I wish it wasn't - I have a slight headache that will make concentrating harder, but it's not BAD enough for me to feel justified in not going (and I have to return Dana's socket wrench set.) I guess I go home (office hours just ended) and take some Tylenol and drink a bunch of water and do my piano practice and my Duolingo and hope I get over this.

Tomorrow will be better, or at least I hope it is.