Friday afternoon thought

Perhaps the reason I like knitting so much, and feel sad when I'm too busy to do much of it, is it's one thing I feel unequivocally good at.

I mean, in a way that's kind of sad - I should feel good at my job, but many days I DON'T because there are too many weird situations where I feel like I'm 100% making it up as I go along. And this semester I've had a critical mass of people with either big life-problems* or who don't seem to care sufficiently** and it's just....it's frustrating


(*Like: day care in this town is terrible, most places have waiting lists a mile long and the good places are pretty expensive. I wish my campus had drop-in day care but I am sure Federal regulations make that hard. We do have a big elementary ed program and you'd think they could do internships. But I have a promising student who has struggled because her husband works full-time plus, she's trying to go to school, there's not family close, and the babysitters she's hired have been flakey)

(** and yes, I know, there may be more going on there than meets the eye but if people just don't do the work and randomly don't show up to class without keeping me in the loop of what's going on, it's easiest to assume they're slacking. And I do NEED TO KNOW in order to help people catch up)

I had people do poorly on a recent assignment and I found myself asking myself: did you teach this wrong? But a couple people got full credit and I'm wondering now if people just weren't paying attention. I notice more and more people repeatedly ask me stuff I JUST SAID, like, five minutes before I said "so your upcoming exam will be over chapters 8, 9, and 11" and then someone will put up their hand and go "What is the exam over?" and while I get some percent of these are just people with Anxiety who have to be reassured....some people are just not listening and it makes me so tired.

(And look: I have anxiety about those kinds of things. I manage it by writing literally everything down. I regularly have Post-It notes stuck to the inside of my front door to remind me of stuff. Even with a smartphone now).

And so a lot of days I come home feeling beaten down and kind of like a failure. (It doesn't help, how little research I get done, when there are people around me talking about how they are having books come out, or are going to neat conferences, or stuff, and right now I just feel very small and very stupid and it's just hard).

So when I can knit, when I can make a hat or a sock or even just a stupid stuffed animal, and it's good and it works and it looks nice, I feel a little better. A little less like a failure. And it's one thing I have complete control over. And it's one thing I won't get judged harshly on - if I give a hat as a gift, it won't come sent back to me with a Review telling me what's wrong and how I need to change and resubmit it***

(*** this is perhaps why I would never design patterns for publication other than maybe through somewhere like Ravelry. I get judged on so many things in my life and I just need one thing where people aren't telling me how it's less-than. I can see EVERY imperfection in EVERYTHING I do, and so hearing people maybe find more or find ones I overlooked is painful)


Also knitting is for me. Even the stuff I am making for gifts. (And if I had more time, I'd probably knit more stuff for other people, if they asked nicely). But so much of the work stuff I do feels like it's all for other people, and I'm constantly judged on it, and I'm never QUITE as good at it as I'd like to be....and it makes me so tired.

especially this fall.

I've been a lot worse this fall than I have been before. I've made more mistakes, I've been off my game, I've been less patient, I've not got stuff graded as fast. I'm doing my best but my best is really crappy right now and that makes me sad. I hope I can get better. If I can't, if this is the new normal for me and my work is now going to be just kind of poor, maybe I need to find a new career. I don't know.

But knitting. At least I'm still good at that.