I'm just tired

So I found out yesterday that we are expected to have our syllabi for next semester done and loaded into BlackBoard by the sixth of January.

I return on the fourth, provided there is no bad weather....so I have to do them today, I guess.

I get tired of how everything accelerates. A few years ago it was "have them posted before the first day of classes." I expect in another year or two it will be "have them up once registration for next semester starts," never mind that some classes may not "make" and so you may be teaching something different.

***

I also came in to multiple e-mails about grades. In a couple cases, the issue was simple: BlackBoard was glitching very badly and sometimes when I'd type in a number some of the digits wouldn't register, and I didn't always catch that. So this morning I've fixed the grades of the people who e-mailed me about it and I will look through the others. But it makes me tired, how BlackBoard has added a layer of immediacy.

I got an e-mail begging for a grade-raise from someone who needed it to maintain/achieve a 2.0. It makes me sad, but the points I'd have to give them were too many and I can't do it. This is someone who has slacked off a lot in the past and they seemed better this semester, but I just can't see it clear to giving them that many points.

I also got an e-mail from someone I had ALREADY rounded up for, wanting a bit more mercy. I went back and looked at their grades. They had a low grade because they skipped a lot of assignments. Sorry, no.

But all of this makes me really tired.

***
The meeting ran late last night. People got talking about stuff that didn't really interest or concern me after the dinner and the gift exchange* but there was no gracious way to leave (and also, another car had blocked me in) so it was like 9:30 when I got home. (And I ate something that apparently is not agreeing too well with me.)

(*I got a Christmas-themed mug and plate. Yay, I guess? Except I will have to store them for 11 months of the year...a lot of the things are more aimed at people who either have grandkids - I could see it being used as a "cookies and milk for Santa" thing - or people who entertain in some way)

But yeah. I am kind of Christmas-partied out; I am at the point of wanting to stay home and watch nice things on TV and knit.

And it also makes me sad: why does this all happen in just one month of the year, and in January or February, when some of us (those without families or sweethearts) could use a little companionship, there's nothing? I mean, I literally do "my birthday" alone every year and it makes me feel like a loser because the pattern you see in our culture is that "birthdays are to be spent with family or friends" but I am far away from family or from friends with the same interests as I have and my local friends would be bored by going antiquing or to a yarn shop, so I don't ask them.

***

I'm also more broadly tired in the sense of what's going on in the world. With the election in the UK, many people are talking (over there) about "what we have to do now to help" - concerns about both austerity and about unkind people feeling empowered to say/do things to other people that they should not do.

And yeah, you know? Here in the US, we have a lot of  people who seem to go hungry, or are in desperate need (can't keep the car they need for work running, can't pay for the medicine they need, etc.). And we seem to have a lot of news stories about hateful people and I don't know if it's increased recently or if it's been seen as more newsworthy recently (the pessimistic part of me wants to think that people have ALWAYS been this bad, it's just being reported now because of various reasons)

But the thing is: "We (meaning people of goodwill) need to do MORE" and honestly? I'm tired. I'm tired from carrying cans over to the Blessing Box and leaving them there in hopes that someone who's hungry will see the can of beans or tuna and feel a little hope. Or from designating money each month to go to various groups that do good, and then having to carefully budget if something happens like, say, a big water leak. Or buying toys for Toys for Tots so maybe a kid somewhere will have at least a few moments of happiness on Christmas morning. Or striving to be kind to my students, and being prepared to firmly shut someone down if they start using racist language (or whatever; sexist or anti-certain-religions or anti-gay or whatever). I've never HAD to, our students generally tend to respect each other (at least in my hearing, and that may be why I've never had to - they may know on some level I'd be very disapproving).

But the idea that "you might be called on to get between a bully and a woman wearing a hijab in public" or "you might have to step in and verbally defend someone who is gay and "out" in front of someone who is prejudiced"....it makes me tired. I mean: you don't have to like everyone out in public. I inwardly sigh heavily and roll my eyes when there's That Woman in line ahead of me at the coffeeshop and she has to give a lecture to the barista on why exactly she needs to have half-caff and soy milk instead of any other kind and the sweetener needs to be agave syrup, not sugar, not stevia and then goes on to explain how the other alternatives are Bad and not just merely not-her-preference....or when I see a kid throwing a tantrum I think of how my parents would have picked my brother or me up bodily, and walked out to the car with us, and said "We will either sit here until you can be calm in the store, or we are going home without buying anything." But I'd never SAY anything to the people who bug me. It's a big world and there are a lot of people in it.  Though maybe it's different because the stuff that bugs me are the behaviors of individuals, and other people feel bugged by the identities of people? I figure it's none of my business, for example, what religion (if any) someone follows UNLESS they are up in my face screaming at me about mine, and in that case my reaction might be more to say "Please don't say those things" and then walk away if I can.

But I will admit it makes me low-level angry, when I'm a person who just wants to mind my own freaking business, or AT THE MOST tell the woman who is wearing a salwar kameez or something and is standing in line behind me that the print on her top is a pretty print and the colors look nice together, that now I may be pressed into service as some kind of "defender" because I'm nominally in "the majority" where I live (white, female-who-is-typically-feminine, Christian-though-how-would-people-know-that-without-knowing-me, conventionally-abled...)And yes, you can argue with me about "privilege" but I am also shy and reticent and I feel angry that "Hey, I'm playing by the rules of the social contract, why should I have to ALSO make up for those a-holes who don't?" The whole "you MUST step out of your comfort zone" thing that is all too much of modern life. It's called "Comfort Zone" for a reason: you are COMFORTABLE there and going through life being forced to be low-level uncomfortable is unpleasant and tiring.

But anyway. Here we are. But yes, "compassion fatigue" (which I guess used to mean a point where you become indifferent to suffering, because you are barraged by so many requests, and yeah, I kind of have that too*) is very much a thing. I just want to go out into public and do my stuff and mind my own business and not worry that I might be called upon to be some kind of freaking superhero if someone is abusing their child or yelling at a guy in a turban or mocking a kid with a disability. It's kind of like the whole bit from Office Space, where Michael Bolton refuses to change his name because he feels like he had it before the "@$$clown singer." I feel like: why should I have to do something deeply painful to me (confrontation), those a-clowns who would be jerks to other people should just be better and not be jerks in the first place.

As I said before: you don't have to LIKE everyone in your vicinity. But you have an obligation not to be a jerk to them.  Or at least, I feel like we have an obligation not to make the public sphere be a scary and unpleasant place for people by getting all up in their business - yes, if someone is actively doing a crime, people should step in, but being different is not a crime.

(Edited to add: I think part of my frustration with this is my feeling that I'm never quite good enough - that I don't do enough, I'm not effective enough at "fixing" things, coupled with a feeling that the world SHOULD be better than it is. I don't know why I walk around so much feeling like I'm not "good enough" when there are people doing actively unpleasant things and not feeling bad, apparently, about it, but that's how it is)

***

I'm still sad about that stupid "people are choosing to die at home" story and I wish I could let go of it. I mean, on some level, yes, I understand it's what my dad wanted and it was as peaceful as it possibly could be. But it does not change the facts of what happened and, to quote Big Bird: "I don't like it! It makes me sad!"

And there are a lot of other stupid things in the news, too. A bad story of animal abuse locally, and they were far more graphic about it than they needed to be. (The only silver lining: yes, the cat had to have a leg amputated, but three-legged cats generally do pretty well, and a couple has stepped up and said they will adopt the cat and I suspect it will be treated pretty well). And a story about how "hey maybe we should put on food packages how long you need to work out in order to burn off this food item" because I guess shaming fat people for what they eat has worked SO well thus far. (sarcasm). The thing is: bodies aren't all identical. Different people burn calories at different rates. It's ENTIRELY possible different foods may be processed in the body differently. And so simplifying it down to "oh, that slice of birthday cake on your birthday? Did you know you would need to run 18 miles* to burn that off?" and great, take another little joy and stomp on it.

(*exaggeration)

I predict if this becomes a thing, in fifteen years the head scratcher will be "Why are we seeing so many people with bad repetitive-strain injuries from working out too hard?" or "Where did this epidemic of disordered eating come from?"

I try to eat healthfully. I don't, always. It doesn't help telling me "that cookie you're eating because you're just hungry and you want something with a little sugar is Bad and you should Feel Bad" because frankly, if I'm eating the dang cookie, I already feel pretty bad.