Too many asks

Mondays, of late, have just been hard.

Part of it, I think, is that, as I said earlier: lots of bad stuff has happened over weekends of late (I also count the news dropping of our university president leaving coming on a Friday as 'weekend') and sometimes it does feel like walking in Monday morning is very much a "What fresh Hell is this" feeling.

Also, I teach three back-to-back-to-back classes on Monday, and I don't care who you are, that takes all your energy and you're not much good for the rest of the day.

And even though I checked my e-mail midday yesterday (just to verify the Wesley Center meeting was still on) I came in to several requests, in level of severity:

- "I can't come and make up the exam when we agreed because I've been throwing up" No idea of the veracity of that, but I'd rather not risk the stomach bug going 'round, so okay.

(And a bunch more - like five at least - people asking for excused absences for today because of the same bug.)

- A very vaguely-flattering e-mail from someone Overseas, wanting to come over here and do a postdoc with me. Uh-huh. We don't even offer Ph.D.s, and my "research program" is the laughable hour or two of work I put in a week in between classes and volunteer work. The person sending out the e-mail probably BCC'd dozens of people, hence the vagueness.

But one of the really dysfunctional things about working in academia? (or maybe: just being an adult) is that when you get something complimenting you, you are immediately on guard that it's either a scam of some kind or a come-on. (I also got an e-mail from Ulta this morning with the header "We love you!" No, you don't, Ulta: you are a corporation and as such are incapable of love. You want me to spend money with you. Which I will continue to do because I want to continue to wear make up and it's easier to get my Clinique stuff from you than going to Belk or Dillard's and hoping the person who can find it in the closed cases is on duty. But don't tell me you love me; that's just peeing on my leg and saying it's raining.

- The worst, though? Someone who claims they graduated about the same time as I did from my prep school (I 100% do not remember them) who is running for elected office in another state and wants donations and support and for people to 'promote' them on social media, and I am just kind of baffled and also horrified* that someone would ask this of me.

I don't know them. They might be a horrible person I would not want to support.

They are not in my state, so my support of them would mean nothing outside of my hard-earned money going to their campaign coffers that they could spend on more darn TV ads or something

I don't give money to campaigns to begin with. Several reasons for this:
 a. I have limited money I can give, I would rather give it to disaster-relief programs or programs aimed at helping people work their way out of poverty or even to scholarship programs for underrepresented groups

 b. I tend to take a dim view of almost everyone in politics, because power corrupts or attracts the pre-corrupted, and so I don't feel like I want to spend my money on that.

 c. You give money to one candidate, it's like feeding pigeons: they'll all flock to you. And they'll all want something. 


(*Yes, yes, I know: I am "guess culture" and they are probably "ask culture" but still.)

I sighed and e-mailed the student back (resetting the time of the exam) but the other two e-mails went in the digital bin. Because even a rude response is a response, and it means the e-mail address is "live," and I don't want to be marked as a sucker.


But yeah. That second one again just reminded me how adulthood is "if no one is screaming at me about how I screwed up, that means I'm doing okay, I guess" and how tiring and isolating that can be. (And I don't know if the "doing okay" is "just barely better than the level at which you'd get fired" or "pretty good, actually," and there's quite a gulf between them)


And the local news is filled with bad news: several dog-attacks in my county (I have no idea what I'd do if I saw a loose dog running around in  my yard when I had to go to work. I have enough of a dog-phobia that I'd be afraid to walk out of the house: I only trust dogs that I know, or whose owners tell me the dog is friendly, and usually a random stray dog is either scared or not-friendly). A shooting. More cases of petty politicians actually being petty crooks. And I am just so tired. I need some kind of wonderful news, news that is unabashedly wonderful, not "terrible person got their comeuppance" but more "someone did something really big and really good" or better, something really big and really good happening to me, but....yeah.