Friday morning stuff

* Application of about an hour's worth of Parks and Recreation re-runs and some knitting time helped my mood a bit.

* I got a good start on the Antler Toque that is to be the AAUW gift - got the ribbing all done, and the first couple rows of the pattern.

* I think one of the issues I am dealing with, and I don't always "see" it when I am mired in it, is that right now (maybe forever more?) I have limited "bandwidth." Or limited working RAM if you prefer that metaphor. (Or, as my grief counsellor put it: we all have something like a glass. Most people operate most of the time with the glass somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 full. But when you're dealing with grief, your glass gets filled up and anything extra, especially anything bad, is going to make it spill over). At the best of times I was never good at dealing with having my time interrupted or redirected or when I was planning on doing one thing being told I had to do another, and right now especially, that is even worse. Which is why I melted down so utterly on Tuesday - I was planning on getting a start on the research stuff (sorting the soil) and then I had to do a bunch more with the assessment stuff. And I was also angry because the assessment stuff gives me zero joy; it feels very much like something I must do to please other people but it's not really very well-designed and I'm not sure the data are much good. And I'm also angry that it was dropped in my lap with little say on my part, and the three separate times I asked for help with it (when people KNEW I was in a bad way, grieving), I got none. And I'm still kind of angry about that and admit I will remember it if I'm asked to "help" with something I don't need to help with and don't particularly want to or have the time to - in the past, I would have made the time, but seeing, well, not "the side my bread is buttered on" but rather more the fact that it's not buttered at all, makes me less desirous of being helpful when it's directly disadvantageous to me in the short term.

* Even though I'm tired I think I need to come in this weekend. I have exams I could be writing to free up time in the NEXT week (there is always work you can do ahead) and I need to get started on that soil. (I can do some of it this afternoon, and some next week - my Tuesday class is not meeting because we finished the material and all we have left are paper discussions and an exam and I decided it made sense to give the students the time off)

* But yeah. I can tell my "bandwidth" is low because of the things that annoy me. There are and have been MANY articles out in the edupress about how "tenured and tenure-track faculty" need to fight for adjunct rights, on the grounds we can't be fired over it like adjuncts can. (No, we can't. But also, if someone takes a dislike to us, they can make our lives hell, and for those of us who are not superstars - like me - we wind up getting stuck with the crummy schedules or other problems or bad committee assignments) and I admit some times I feel like I'm being told "Here, hand these oxygen tanks and masks out to everyone else, and then we'll let you put yours on"

And yes, I get it. But I think some of those writers overestimate the power a mediocre tenured faculty member has on a small campus. No one has an investment in keeping me happy; if I left they'd just replace me with a couple adjuncts, no one would care. So if I complained to a higher-up about something chances are they'd just shrug and fold their arms and I'd have wasted my breath and whatever tiny bit of political capital I had. (And in my department? We've tried really hard to avoid adjunct labor, and have held the line and have managed to keep the number of tenure lines, at least, the number we had in 2016 -- it would really be ideal to have one or two more, but that probably won't happen)

* And also, seeing all the people talking about NaNoWriMo (where you try to write a novel of a certain length in the month of November) or NaNoSweMo (same, but with sweaters), it makes me sad. (Someone on Twitter today scolded people: "Do it, don't do it, but don't poop on people who are" Does feeling sad because your life prohibits you from having time for it count as pooping on it?)

I don't even think I have a novel IN me, but the idea of being able to do something JUST for myself like that....and maybe even something that would somehow, someday get published - the fact that I can't do it (too many demands on my time) makes me sad.

And I say "maybe in retirement" but one thing the losses of this year have taught me is that "maybe in retirement" might mean "never" - because maybe I don't make it to retirement. Or maybe something really big and really bad financially goes wrong and I CAN'T retire.

(Having one of my periodic funks of "I should give away about 5/6 of my books and all my yarn and fabric; I never use ANY of it and I have so much" Part of it is some leftover St. Basil stuff - why should I have it if other people are in need and I"m not using it - part of it is "I really don't want to die with 100 skeins of sockyarn I never got to knit up")

* And I see in my Informed Delivery that I get a letter from the IRS today. I sincerely hope it's "Okay, the problem is resolved, everything is fine" though I also suspect - given how long it took for me to even get the return-receipt that they had received it - it will merely be a "we received it and will let you know within six months" and I just need this to be DONE and be fairly certain I won't owe any more money or penalties.

* So many student problems today (illness, bad work schedules, athletics) that I admit I'd be tempted to just cancel ALL my classes and go home. This has been the stupidest semester ever.


*****

Edited to add:

- The IRS letter was as I expected, a "We're working on it, you'll hear back in 60 days" (greeeeeeat, while I'm on Christmas break, so if I owe more money, more interest will just accrue). They did say essentially "Oh, bee-tee-dubs, if you think you owe more money, better send it in now, LOL."

I don't THINK I do. If I thought I did I'd have sent it with the original repayment. This is seriously stupid.


- I may have caught a nest of cheaters in one class. I can't definitively prove it and anyway they all earned like 30% on the assignment so whatever. But "don't cheat off someone stupider than you" is good advice (and of course, as an arguably-smart person? I never let anyone cheat off me, and most smart students, in my experience, don't, except maybe in some "desperate to impress a would-be love interest" situation). But I'm ticked off because this means I have to backtrack (we are already far behind) and re-teach that stuff IN CASE it was a genuine mistake on all their part and I just taught it badly. And I am second guessing myself more than normal because grief brain has made me stupid.

- Realized getting out to Wal-Mart tomorrow is going to be complicated (I do not have time to go to Sherman tomorrow). There's a fun run in town and already there are cones up around some of the streets I would take. And I am not going there this afternoon, it is Payday Friday and that will end in tears for me. (And tomorrow morning I expect the shelves to be locust-bare; that's how it often is. Dangit. I hope there's some of the organic skim milk I buy left.) I suppose the other option is to do the order online and pickup for the first time ever but I think you have to put together a $30 minimum order (and I don't know for sure when I will leave campus this afternoon; I have to get to my research work now after grading).

We really need another supermarket somewhere in the outlying areas, less than a half-hour's drive. And a LARGE one, not one of these minimarts. My county has gotten big enough, and the big wal-mart is the only really LARGE market in the county (Pruett's, for all the stuff they do have, are rather small, and they don't have *everything* I need)

- I woke up just before midnight to use the restroom and once I was back in bed, I waited until I figured it was just after midnight, and whispered "rabbit rabbit rabbit" to the still air of my bedroom. There's an old superstition in the US and UK that saying "Rabbit rabbit rabbit" or some variant thereof first thing on the first day of the month brings good fortune, and I have had enough bad stuff happen these past months to be superstitiously inclined to do ANYTHING to incline the fates or the stars or the universe or whatever in my favor, however briefly.

- Time to start thinking about Christmas gifts. Sadly, one less to find this year. I've got my niece's and my sister-in-law's, and part of one in mind (if I can get it knit up - a plain dark-brown watchcap) for my brother. And my moms socks are progressing but I also feel like if I don't 100% finish them before the holiday, she will not mind and I can finish them after for her.

I'm also playing around with the idea of either buying her an additional gift, or getting some kind of nice-food gift for us to share. Seeing as she will get fewer gifts this year than she did in past years (my father, who loved giving gifts, being gone)

(aw crap, I'm tearing up. My dad really did love Christmas and finding the right gift for people and that is one way in which I am like him. One good way. I inherited a lot of his not-so-great personality traits like being a perfectionist but that's one I inherited that I think is good)

Anyway. Either getting her a nice gift card from King Arthur Flour (she likes to bake) or ordering some kind of basket gift from Stonewall Kitchen that would provide either a fancy breakfast or a simple nice dinner for us some night.

I also bought - with my last KnitPicks order - two machine-washing lingerie bags, so it's easier to safely wash the machine-washable socks. I am going to give her one.

As for me? I suggested to her I could use new field boots and the tradition there would be she would give me a 'certificate' for them and then we'd go pick them out after the holiday. I don't know what else. She did say she was ordering some things out of catalogs though this year she will be able to get out more to shop....I suppose I should start looking in some of the catalogs as they come to see if there is clothing I need or something. (I hesitate to ask for more books or yarn; I have so much and so little time to use it right now and that makes me sad)

- I've set aside the weekend of the 15th and 16th to decorate my house for Christmas. Yes, it's early, but I need it, and I'll be gone the next weekend. And I need to decide when I travel for Christmas and order the tickets. My inclination is to travel home as EARLY as I can (so: like the 16th) and come back a bit earlier (like January 3rd). That would give me time to do some pre-semester prep once I was back, but would be home with my mom for a good long time and I've already promised her help clearing a lot of junk out of the basement. I guess she figures with my dad gone, she can haul any old paperwork out of there and get rid of it (seriously: there are tax records going back 25 years) and he's not there to worry about it now. Of course a lot of it will need to be shredded and there are no confidential shredders in the area. (If she were a bit more rural we could burn them, but we aren't)

Or, heck, maybe I decorate NEXT weekend even though it's early, I don't even know. I might have more time then.