ups and downs

It's Monday.

The one good thing? Heard back from the editor of the Prairie Conference proceedings that everything looks good, so I am 95% assuming* that means the paper will be out soon, or at the very least, I won't have to mess with it any more.

(*You cannot assume ANYTHING in academic publishing is done until the paper is actually published)

Not so good? I sent the wrong version of the corrected other manuscript. And now I cannot find the right version; I am wondering if I didn't save it or something (I was working on it when (a) I had the first bad cold or maybe it was flu and my brain wasn't working great and (b) that was one of the times when my computer decided to go glitchy and perhaps I shut it down in frustration without saving properly, I don't know). So I'm having to reconstruct and also do some additional analyses because I guess the editor was right after all, but whatever.

I'm just tired. I came in all fired up going I AM GOING TO PLAN SUMMER RESEARCH TODAY! since I had only the one class and yet my day is going to be entirely eaten by this.

Originally, I had plans to treat myself to a sweater's worth of sockweight yarn (there is a lace cardi in the newest Simply Knitting (UK) that I really like and I want to make). But after faculty meeting, I don't know....

(What I mean is, I am once again wondering if I need to save every single penny that I absolutely don't have to spend on utilities or food or medication because I may not make it all the way to retirement age before I have to find something else to do with  my life....)

It seems like we periodically hear updates on how higher ed (outside of Harvard and Yale and the other schools set aside for the elite) is circling the drain and will wind up as some kind of utilitarian online hellscape where the only things taught are the "money making" things (goodbye, Classics. goodbye, ecology and botany and any kind of non-medical, non-agronomy-oriented* biology)

(*How soon before we see majors in growing weed, in order to keep up with the increasing legalization?)

At issue here is that several departments have "partnered" (verbing weirds nouns) with a for-profit group (which automatically makes me suspicious) and this group is now pushing for more....and it's going to drive "innovation" into a 7-week cycle. Yup, "accelerated" courses (well, faster but not equally rigorous, I suspect) where you are working year-round on a seven-week cycle with maybe a week off between each cycle. UGH. And the supposition is that it is just a matter of time before all departments are forced to go heavily to that model....and yeah, labs? Apparently there aren't labs, or they're done "virtually" and this is just SUCH a bad idea (I would not want a doctor who had done most of his or her labwork online).

But yeah. That's how things seem to be going: both a two-tiered system where the elites get things that seem to objectively be good, and everyone else gets the cheapest and shoddiest possible. (Also see: how clothing is made now. You can spend large amounts of money for something that is practically bespoke that is well-made and lasts well, or you can buy cheap crap made in a sweatshop that looks cruddy after the third washing. Or, if you have skill and LOTS of time, you can make it yourself and I am a pretty talented seamstress but even I won't make jeans....)

And also that things that don't make money are seen as literally worthless, which I find deeply disturbing, because many of the things I care very deeply about are those "worthless" things and it seems a small step to go from saying "you care about worthless things" to "you are worthless as a person."

(And yeah: this is also why church is SO SO SO important to me. To go every week and be around people, and also to be told: there are things that are more important than what the World says are important, and the things that you value ARE valuable even if a price tag can't be put on them, and perhaps that's precisely why they are so valuable, and anyway,  all people have value regardless of how much money they make)

I am also sadly again contemplating how I could keep body and soul together if the total-online-i-fication of teaching happens before 11 years have elapsed. (I can retire in 11 more years....) I don't want a job where I have to be a service-giver to people who can figuratively spit on me for the lulz (I've seen that happen to people in retail and the like). I'm not physically strong enough for a lot of the more demanding Corps of Engineers type jobs. I don't have an "in" so I'm guessing anything above the lowest level of civil servanting is out. I don't have it in me to become an entrepreneur; I have zero ideas and I know I don't have good business sense....and selling stuff on Etsy wouldn't make enough money, even if I sold every single one of my Ponies and books and everything I own that makes my life seem worth living....

I dunno. I'm telling myself that this is in large part me catastrophizing, that maybe things will swing back around and get better, or maybe there really will be a window that will open up (and that won't be, you know, a fall from the 32nd floor) if this door closes, but right now I'm just.....I'm questioning why I'm even pushing to do this paper rewrite, no one will read it, it won't help me get another job elsewhere if I need to do that, and I don't know....

Man, were my romantic dreams about being a college prof that I had back as an undergrad waaaaaaay off base....

And I just found out a "frequent flyer" (in terms of issues) on another online place I am at drove another person away by being rude to them. I wish the "frequent flyer" would get angry and leave. People are just....yes, perhaps it was unreasonable that that person left, but this "frequent flyer" has done this more than once, and TPTB don't seem to want to tell them to straighten up and fly right.

I'm just....this day is fired. Just like the end of last week was fired. I hope February is better.