1.29.2005
Seasonal Affective Disorder and Other Stuff
So, I have officially entered the season of the Winter Blahs, and this despite the fact that the days are getting longer. (Once or twice I've looked up from my computer to notice that it was light earlier or later than it should have been; which is nice, but I'm still at the darn computer.) I'm in one of those time periods when nothing I say seems to be the right thing, when stupid little things irritate me, and when I can't seem to muster the energy for things I need to do.
The students in my art and activism class have been great in class, but they don't do the web assignments. (They also slacked off and came late, left early, or didn't show up at all to our meetings last week. Granted, one of the days half of them didn't show up we were meeting outside to look at murals and it was 25 degrees and windy. So I should cut them some slack.) Then the students doing a reading course with me, bless their hearts, have been cc'ing me on messages to schedule a meeting time and in the process informing me of all the little things that make it impossible for them to meet at particular days and times ("I will have just done a presentation in my other class"; "I have a lot of work early in the week" etc.) I've been obsessing about the fact that none of my colleagues in the department have made any effort to involve me in any social events or intellectual exchange since I was hired (no invitations to dinner or lunch or coffee, no feedback on my work--should I be worried? it's been a year and a half). At dinner the other night with a departmental search committee everyone kept interrupting me whenever I opened my mouth to say anything to the candidate.
Yeah. Complain, complain, complain. None of these things by itself represents a pattern. It's just that they all happened at once. (I think the fact that I have any perspective at all on this can be credited to St. John's Wort tea.)
So, today I made a stab at cleaning the fridge and put in it the oranges and grapefruit that my grandmother sends me in the winter. I threw out a whole bunch of piled-up newspapers from when we were away -- and after. I cleaned the litter boxes. I took stuff to the drycleaner and bought new boots and dropped off an eye mask and neck pillow for my student who's off to do research in Europe. I made a great pasta dinner for myself from frozen vegetables from the summer's organic crop. I planned gallery talks for the exhibition I organized, which is about to open.
And I managed to clean off a new work space today, which enables me to take advantage of the fact that after 3 1/2 years of living here I have heat in the sun porch, because a new radiator was finally installed to replace the one that leaked (about which the previous owner--who still lives in the building--was not entirely honest).
Some might think this constitutes a lot of accomplishments for a Saturday. Some might not be on this crazy breakneck work schedule. Whew! More coffee, and back to work...
The students in my art and activism class have been great in class, but they don't do the web assignments. (They also slacked off and came late, left early, or didn't show up at all to our meetings last week. Granted, one of the days half of them didn't show up we were meeting outside to look at murals and it was 25 degrees and windy. So I should cut them some slack.) Then the students doing a reading course with me, bless their hearts, have been cc'ing me on messages to schedule a meeting time and in the process informing me of all the little things that make it impossible for them to meet at particular days and times ("I will have just done a presentation in my other class"; "I have a lot of work early in the week" etc.) I've been obsessing about the fact that none of my colleagues in the department have made any effort to involve me in any social events or intellectual exchange since I was hired (no invitations to dinner or lunch or coffee, no feedback on my work--should I be worried? it's been a year and a half). At dinner the other night with a departmental search committee everyone kept interrupting me whenever I opened my mouth to say anything to the candidate.
Yeah. Complain, complain, complain. None of these things by itself represents a pattern. It's just that they all happened at once. (I think the fact that I have any perspective at all on this can be credited to St. John's Wort tea.)
So, today I made a stab at cleaning the fridge and put in it the oranges and grapefruit that my grandmother sends me in the winter. I threw out a whole bunch of piled-up newspapers from when we were away -- and after. I cleaned the litter boxes. I took stuff to the drycleaner and bought new boots and dropped off an eye mask and neck pillow for my student who's off to do research in Europe. I made a great pasta dinner for myself from frozen vegetables from the summer's organic crop. I planned gallery talks for the exhibition I organized, which is about to open.
And I managed to clean off a new work space today, which enables me to take advantage of the fact that after 3 1/2 years of living here I have heat in the sun porch, because a new radiator was finally installed to replace the one that leaked (about which the previous owner--who still lives in the building--was not entirely honest).
Some might think this constitutes a lot of accomplishments for a Saturday. Some might not be on this crazy breakneck work schedule. Whew! More coffee, and back to work...
