Exasperating!

Today was an exasperating day. It was all set up to be a good day, free of some of the work that has plagued me for the last week. I was even kerplunking on the interwebs when dum dum duuuummm, I was reminded that the deadline for a project was staring me in the face. I had thought the work wasn't due for another month -- I really did. I went back into my notes and saw that the due date had been buried -- of course my fault for not having paid more attention, but buried nonetheless. Then I was put in charge of my little end of it, which is kind of cool because I love projects, but I felt like a complete idiot for totally having forgotten about the whole thing, not even knowing what was going on when it was mentioned. Oy vey! I hope I made up for it by getting right on it, but. . .well, we'll see. Way to go, Earnest, starting off that first year right. Sigh.

And then. . .students. What are they thinking? Now, I often have mixed feelings when faculty complain about students, but now really. Sometimes you just have to kvetch. (Partly because Absurdist Lover just can't stand hearing about it anymore.) So what I want to say is students, there are these things called due dates. They are not fuzzy rolling deadlines, but hard definite due dates. When the moment has passed, your paper is late. The late policy is on the syllabus. It's all really very simple. Today, students' special requests and begging for special consideration got so bad that when one student just came up to me and said s/he didn't have hir paper and knew it was late and the late policy applied, I nearly wept with joy for someone who just got it. Part of me thinks that maybe I'm overreacting and this is not a sign of the decline of civilization, but I really do see a difference between these students and students I've taught in the past. Some just have this sense that the rules don't apply to them. (Can you say entitlement?) The worst thing about all this is that most of my students are fine, interesting people who believe in the deadlines and really try to do their work and understand the requirements -- but these others just stand out so much in my head that it's generally dispiriting about the whole enterprise. I have to work on not letting a few rotten apples spoil the bunch for me.

Today was a great example of my exhaustion. I came home and hung out with Absurdist Baby, partly to give AL a break and partly because he's my baby and I love him and want to be with him, and I was okay for a while until after dinner when I basically just kind of passed out. (Absurdist Lover knew it was happening before I did so it's not like AB was in danger of not being watched or anything.) I woke back up and fed the baby some solids and everything, but now, the perfect time to go to bed and try to make up some of that sleep I miss when AB wakes me up at 5am, I'm not that tired and what's more, I don't wanna. This is the hardest thing for me -- not having any time for myself, so I stay up late in order to have some time, then I'm even more exhausted for everything. I think living alone for such a long time and being deeply inside of all that quiet (to the point that it was deafening at times, to mix a metaphor) makes it hard for me now when I'm used to all that quiet alone time but it's really not there to be had. But of course even when I was a kid I needed a lot of alone time. I really don't want to become my mother, but when I was a kid she also used to stay up half the night in order to be alone too.

By the way, before we moved, both our cats had gotten sick and had to be put to sleep. So we've been catless, until recently when a little grey and orangey girlcat was found sleeping inside a hose. It seems now we have a cat. Of course, we really should ask around the neighborhood and mean to, but she so fits in around here that it's hard to even want to. She's been here a week and already knows that she can run the place, stealing my water, jumping into the baby's playpen, and stretching out on the boppy when the baby is eating. For all this, she puts up with AB bopping her in the face and pulling her ears. She's sitting next to me now, purring. Her still happiness can teach me something.

Tomorrow is Friday, people. Woo hoo!