I have been laid up since Wednesday with some horrible cold. I went to the doctor, got a couple of big shots, and while the ear infection went away, the asthma flared up and the coughing was uncontrollable, and I've had to take some serious cough medicine to make it through the night which has left me feeling in many ways worse than without it (but sleeping through the night through the coughing is worth it). However, this means I've spent a lot of time napping and foggy-headed which means that I've done no work since Wednesday. Now I'm panicking. The plan I had worked, until I got sick.
But this is the problem with the time crunch, isn't it. The time crunch only works if one does not get sick or if the wheels are well oiled and there's no hitch. And I've put myself into this situation, so I've got no choice this summer but to make it work, but after reading EE's blog about The Slow Professor (sorry that I'm too lazy to link you Earnest--feel free to link yourself in the comments if you want), I think I'm going to check out that book and perhaps change my approach to my life (which I've been struggling with for some time). I work well with a schedule. But what I believe my problem is is packing that schedule so tight that when one thing goes off, I cannot adapt. And then EVERYTHING falls apart, and rather than just having to fix one thing, I have to fix all the things.
I'm going to keep this in mind when I schedule my office hours for next quarter, and when I schedule other things.
There is some crunch time though this week. I've got to get some massive amounts of reading done today so that I can plow through a couple of things tomorrow, and start drafting some of this article that's due Friday. I hope it can be done. But this morning is the first morning I don't feel foggy-headed and grumpy, so there's some hope. And I think I can get a fair amount done in the morning so I have the afternoon to spend at the pool with the kid.
There it is. Wish me luck!
Luck!
ReplyDeleteI find packed schedules panic me - but I'm also lousy at getting stuff done, so I read all these books and blogs and stuff and keep trying to change and it doesn't work. I work best in flux, with a lot of flexibility and downtime, because my health and my mood are in flux, and even without a child/other family in the same house, stuff keeps coming up.
I wish you much luck, dear Maude! (And I told Absurdist Husband about Magpie's terrible teacher, and he is just floored that someone so stupid about children can be employed in the field! Doesn't the director of the place know that children are different and it's very dangerous to have an ignorant person helping children who has such a narrow and mistaken idea of how children are?!)
ReplyDeleteI love the Slow Professor. It's definitely making me rethink my approach. I'm glad that there's enough info on the blog to inspire those who aren't reading it! Here's the link for anyone else interested: http://absurdistparadise.blogspot.com/2016/07/slow-week-3-time-management-and.html
Like JaneB, I panic with a packed schedule. In fact, I'm worse than that. I get angry and panicked and then I am not thinking well and am mean to everyone. (This is when I walk around saying that I hate everything, which happens pretty much every quarter, which is why I must change my approach.)
Sweet Maude, you can get this work done, but maybe not when you're sick. When you're with Magpie (but not near the pool -- I will always say you should every spare eyeball and brain cell on Magpie when near a pool), you can give yourself the assignment to think through some bit of the work you're doing. Sometimes giving myself some time to think things over when I can't be working really works and keeps me from being agitated. (Sometimes it makes me really agitated, though, so you'll have to see if it works for you.)
Big hug and Wonder Woman kick-ass to you!
(Oooh, and I wanted to say: the very worst thing that happens is that you don't get tenure. Yes, this is bad and would require all sorts of kick-ass work from you. But it does sound like this place is discriminatory and inhumane and just sort of sucks for you. If you don't get tenure, you and Hubster WILL figure something else out, something that might be SUPER AWESOME for you and Magpie and him that you can't even imagine now. I know that sounds like the worst thing ever, but the worst thing would be in danger of losing Hubster and/or Magpie. This is just a job. You rock. (I say all this because sometimes when I get super-freaked out and everything seems do or die, it helps to remember what the worst case scenario actually is, to actually squarely in the face look at what I'm scared about. I had to do this yesterday with very bad work news and sit myself down and say: okay, what's the worst that could happen? It really helped. So I offer that to you too.) I promise you that even if you don't get tenure at this place, your rockingness won't be affected even a little bit.