Long, busy week

 Even though I get Friday off. 

Today I had yet another assessment data task. I won't lie, I resent doing this even if I realize it has to be done by someone. Part of it is I know people at other universities who have told me "wait, you don't have an office on campus that takes care of that? You have to do it yourself?" and yeah, one way my underfunded school saves money is just assuming faculty have infinite time for tasks unrelated to their teaching or research.

The other reason is more personal. I got this task in August 2019, only a few weeks after my dad died. Like, I literally got back to campus and the outgoing person (got kicked upstairs to a higher paying admin position, then left for a higher paying position elsewhere) kind of dumped it in my lap with "you're the most knowledgeable about stats, so you can do this" and proceeded to explain the analyses they did in the past VERY FAST and my brain just.....didn't absorb any of it. 

And then a couple weeks, later a call from the person doing committee assignments: "So, you're on the assessment committee now along with the ones you're currently on" and I explained I had had a very recent bereavement, I was teaching four classes that fall [assessment is one of the most labor intensive committees] and I just felt I could not.

And they didn't understand. I had to really push and even CRY on the phone and even then I got the feeling they thought I should just suck it up and do it, at a time when I could barely feed myself. 

So I have bad memories attached to it. And it does feel like the Task That Never Ends because I get one part of it done, and then I find out that "oh, this part needs to be done too." And there's an element of "shoot the messenger" when the data aren't good - I hear the complaints about it. 

And I can't really make a case for someone else doing it, so I might as well count on doing it until I retire. 

So, yeah.

But I did do one thing for myself - I got to thinking about how I had better make my Christmas travel plans* so once I got home from Board meeting I quickly went on the Amtrak website and tried to order tickets.

It took a couple tries to find days that got me a roomette available (especially in the age of COVID, I don't want to travel coach), but I got them. So that's sorted.

(*here's hoping the freight railroads - which has the dispatchers and the maintenance people - can work out a new contract and don't strike in November, I would be profoundly sad having to spend another "Alone Holiday" like I did in 2020. Though possibly if I were stuck here this time someone would take pity on me and at least invite me for Thanksgiving dinner [or I will learn I don't actually have anyone here who loves me enough to consider that]. But I really hope they can iron out a contract.)

I've also been reading a lot of nice stories about all the good Angela Lansbury did with her life. Like, did you know why she often had "stars of the past" (from old sitcoms, etc.) as guest appearances on "Murder, She Wrote"? I always thought it was just a fun thing, so you could go "look, it's Mindy's dad from Mork and Mindy" or "Hey, wasn't she in a soap opera ages ago?" In fact, she was doing it so their union credentials wouldn't lapse and so they could keep health insurance. And apparently she encouraged a lot of younger actors. 

It makes me a little sad that sometimes those stories only come out after the person has died, but I love that they do come out. We hear way, way too much about the terrible things some people do; hearing the good and kind things other people do is like oxygen to me.