Just bad week

 Worst birthday week ever.

Monday was okay, I guess.

Tuesday, I gave up much of the day for that science fair and I don't feel like I did a very good job.

Wednesday were the interviews that ate up most of the day

Today was discussion of the interviews, none of us were particularly happy, someone pooh-poohed one of my concerns, which hurt my feelings a bit

I'm behind in all my classes and I'm afraid I won't get the material for systematic botany prepped in time despite working very hard on it.

I think I'm boring the students in systematic botany; some of them seem not very engaged. It's a horrible, demoralizing feeling to feel like you are doing your best and it is not good enough.

(And no, "your best is good enough" is a dirty lie. Sometimes it is not. I know in some cases my best is not)

And finally: bad storms are coming in. We were supposed to attend a recital for AAUW tonight, some of the older women in the group chat said they weren't going. And I said "hey, has anyone contacted the person doing the recital to see if it's even still on?" 

And so I did, figuring if he was doing it JUST for us, maybe we should cancel. Well, he was inviting other people but when I told him there might not be many folks there because of the tornado threat, he said "well, you know, this is your group's third strike and I won't schedule any more of these; you have cancelled too many." And you know? That hurt my feelings. I was trying to be polite. EVERY cancellation was bad weather - twice, campus was closed, and now, there might be a tornado

And I admit, I raged at God a bit on the way home: "Do You WANT me to stop being a kind person? Do You WANT me to become mean and selfish? 'Cos if stuff like this keeps happening, where my concerns are brushed off or people snap at me or my attempts to be kind or rejected, I just WILL"

and yes, a hollow threat, because God help me I cannot do otherwise than I am. But it's been a HORRIBLE week and I feel like nothing I did or said was the right thing and that's terrible.

That just happens to me some times - no matter what I do, I either rub people the wrong way, or I'm misunderstood, or I say the wrong thing despite my best efforts, and I just feel very small and sad. I'd cry but there's no point in crying when you don't have anyone to comfort you. 

I guess this year's birthday theme was: ha ha your life's at least half  over and you have nothing of value to show for it, and you're also going to alienate people from yourself despite your best efforts to be kind.

 And yes, I also failed at Lent - I had some cookies left over (it's wasting food to throw it away and I figured they'd still be good at Easter) and wound up stuffing them in my face, so, yeah, I've hit something beyond the trifecta of failure this week

I'd go to bed, like right now, but I have to stay up and keep an eye on the weather until it passes around 9 pm. At least I might get the exams I gave today graded. If I had been thinking straight I'd have brought my systematic botany books home and worked on that, too. Maybe if I  keep internet connectivity I can do a little online research.