Argh!

I am a grumpy grumperson today!

I've been up since about 1:30 am. I just couldn't get back to sleep. Our air conditioner is on the fritz, which at least thankfully it's winter, although it's been in the god awful 70s here*, at least it's not June that it went out. And at least since we're renting, it's not an unexpected expense for us. I feel bad that it's an unexpected expense for my landlord during the holidays because we really like him, but what can you do? But again, at least it's not summertime.

One of my classes is decidedly a class full of duds. Only about 3 are reading consistently. One for sure. And I feel bad for him because I feel like he's being short changed here, because it's become clear that they expect me to just point out the "important things" and that they can just mark the passages we talk about in class and not actually do the reading. I don't want to give quizzes because a) I don't want to have to go through the trouble of making quizzes for each class period, and b) I don't want to have to grade all those quizzes either. And I feel like it's senseless to create more work for myself when even with a basic quiz, it's still extra work for me for students who should be keeping up with the reading and not just for the sake of the quiz. So instead, I warned them that for most of them the midterm is royally going to suck and some of them will be in for a rude awakening. And on any given day, 1/3 to 1/2 the students don't show up. Already. We've had nine class periods. I have some who have missed 5, 6, 7 days thus far. So it's possible that they will already most likely fail the class.

Not to mention that I have two super annoying students in that class, too. One of whom has only been there twice, thank god. The other is a nice guy, but jeeeeeeeeeeeesus! He's one of those who has an opinion on everything, which is always contrary to what I say, and HAS to talk to me after every.single.class period. I can't just go to my office for 15 minutes of peace. He.has.to.follow. For example, he argued with me in class and then afterwards about how Poe MUST HAVE been stoned while he was writing. No. And I went over some very specific reasons in class why one cannot dismiss Poe's writings as such. And that I've never read anything by legit scholars (or anyone really other than students) that claimed that Poe was indeed under the influence at the time of his compositions or revisions. His argument for why over 100 years of Poe scholarship is incorrect? He writes under the influence and recognizes ALL of the signs, at which point he told me I should try it, that it would make my writing better. Uh, so yeah, in all of that, you insulted Poe, insulted me, and informed me of your habitual drug usage. Thank you. By the way, in case I'm interested, he's written over 10 novels that if I'd like to read them, he'd be more than happy to make them available to me. Some of which are 600 pages. Yes, indeed, in all of my spare time I have, I'd like to read 600 pages of what I am now sure are novels of your stoner delusions. Sheesh. He also tried to tell me that I was wrong about the Native Americans not being one of the 12 lost tribes of Israel. That he had evidence to the contrary.

Good god it's going to be a looooooooooooooooong ass quarter.

And then the one student in the class who is keeping up with the work emailed me to apologize for his classmates sucking and to thank me for still being able to do a good job and keep it interesting despite the class sucking, which has never happened to me before and which was really nice of him. So I thanked him for keeping up with the work and for doing great work and told him that I hoped he wasn't being short changed because of his classmates.

This is really the first shitty class I've had here, and honestly, I just don't have the energy right now to pull teeth. Perhaps if it were another quarter, yes. But, they need to take some responsibility and do the fucking readings. However, I suspect that many of them are not going to do well on their midterms, which is not my problem, really if they're not reading. Fortunately, the 12:30 class is the total opposite, so my mood  and my faith in my students is always redeemed after that class.

Ack, yeah, so anyway. Only two days left. I have a ton of grading to do, but I really don't think any of it's going to get done until the quarter starts back up. I know that's kinda shady, but honestly, I don't want to spend my break grading. I had thought I'd have the energy to get it done by Friday, but I wasn't expecting to be as sick as I've been. I wasn't expecting James to take as much time as he did. And I wasn't expecting the husband's work party to include families (which is this afternoon), so meh. Some of them probably don't want their grade anyway. I guess it depends on how many students actually turned in their first assignment.

Enough of them! It's making me more sour.

So today I'll finish up James. Tomorrow we're watching a movie, so it's a no brainer for me at least. I should consider working out tomorrow. I intended to go today, but not on 4 hours of sleep, not pregnant anyway. So yes, I'm a giant ball of sourness. But whatever. Only two days. Only three more class periods. No more office hours.

I will try to find the positive for something today--ooooh, yes, I get a nice tasty lunch that I don't have to fix. I don't have to have office hours today. I get to do more Christmas shopping. And I only need to show a movie tomorrow. There. There's my ray of light in this right before break darkness.

*look, I know last year I was all "yay for being able to run out doors all year long without wearing 50 layers of clothes!" but this year I am very nostalgic for snow. I want colder weather. I wants hats and mittens and scarves and sweaters, boots, not flip-flops. A roaring fire. Not mosquitoes (still!) and fire ants. No. It's times like this that I deeply long for Grad City, believe it or not.

Hi!

I slept in again today. Sorta. I mean, I reset the alarm twice and then hit the snooze. I could not get out of bed. I did not WANT to get out of bed. Apparently for all my complaining about my students already being on break, I have been in that mindset all week, too. This seems to be the problem with quarters. I think their friends at other colleges and universities are done, too, yet we still push on, for another week that's clear no one wants to have to face.

But I continue to feel better right now. I made dinner last night! It was unhealthy by my standards, but it was good, and it was homecooked and I ate too much and made myself a little sick from it, so that's part of why I didn't get out of bed. The nighttime meds make me morning drowsy. I need to work out though because I'm getting stiff here. It sucks.

I have a bunch of papers coming in today and tomorrow. I'm going to try to get them graded by Friday afternoon because I don't want those things hanging around all break. That would be just bad.

But anyway, I need to feed the dogs and get some presents wrapped and ready to be mailed today and eat and get ready and get to school so I can prep and then start to work on those essays. I just wanted to say "hi," and I hope you all have a good day.

Back to "Normal"?? Dare I say, "OMG! I feel good today!!"

I have gone a whopping 24 hours without the morning sickness meds. This is indeed a thing to behold. And I have not had to substitute eating to combat it, either. Yesterday, when my stomach got empty, I didn't get sick or nauseous or dizzy or anything like that. I just got hungry. That was a nice change. Yesterday afternoon, too, when I got home I wasn't dog tired either. I had energy. I didn't just zone out on the couch! That was a welcome change, too! It could be perhaps because I got a lot of rest Sunday night and slept in. But I didn't sleep quite as well last night, but I still feel quite energetic this morning. I still slept in--I wanted one more day of rest before I went back to CrossFit. So perhaps this is the beginning of the second trimester energy bump that I hear about? If that's the case, then damn, I need to start taking advantage of this so I can finally get some stuff done!

If this is that "energy bump," then I'm excited because this means that I will now be able to do some of my work. I might finally be able to get back to research and writing, which has been largely absent from my life this academic year. I actually have ideas that I want to develop! It'd be different if I had no ideas; then I wouldn't feel like my life was empty and pointless this academic year. And perhaps it's the "sophomore slump." But I have things to say that I think are interesting and important and worthwhile. And I know this might sound silly, but damn, I get constant updates in my email from Goodreads from all my smart friends who are spending all of their time reading incredible things and I'm totally jealous! I want to be reading incredible things! I want to be writing smart stuff and be a smarty pants and get my tenure requirements secured so I can start on my book. I want to be able to apply for quarter course releases or sabbaticals so I can spend all my time reading and writing. But I can't do that if I can barely summon the energy to make dinner, so if this is here to stay for a few months, then yes, I welcome the uncontrollable burst of manic energy I feel right now. Because this might mean that I actually get stuff done over our piddly 2 week break. I might be able to read, write, prep, and clean! What?? Could that be true?? To quote my favorite Queen song (before I even saw Wayne's World): "Is this the real life? Or is this fantasy?" I want this to be as real as I always wished Santa were real!

I just relish the thought of getting myself back, even if I know it's temporary, I can work with that. I can set goals for what needs to be done by say March because I hear the 3rd trimester is a bit draining, particularly toward the end.

I mean seriously, can I tell you how good I feel?? I haven't felt this good since August, to be honest with you. (Right, because I was sick all of September and then got knocked up right when I got well). I feel like I could conquer the world right now. OMG. It's so freaking refreshing! After, seriously, what 3.5 months of being sick for one reason or another and then to wake up feeling good?? Hallelujah!

All right. Enough of that.

I think my to do list for the day is manageable. I think I can even manage to cook dinner, and I really want some chicken pot pie. Oh yes indeed do I.

And now that I'm feeling better and feel like I might actually be able to start cooking on a regular basis again, it's time to get my eating back in order. If I can eat without getting sick, then I need to get back on the food train that does the best for my body and will help maximize my energy. I do feel like a poser because since I've been sick, I eat whatever at that moment didn't make my stomach want to turn, Paleo or not. And I'm comforted by other Paleo mom's that I'm not the only one who had aversions and sickness that went against what I felt was best for my body. Anyway, one thing that does actually make me sick is sugar, but damn, sometimes you just have to have chocolate cake. But I need to curb that. Okay, this is boring stuff. What I wanted to emphasize was that I hope that this means that I get to start cooking again because I enjoy it, it relaxes me, and I feel better overall, in general, when I do.

Okay, time to walk the dogs and have breakfast and get ready and then go be extraordinarily brilliant with some James which thank god we're almost done with!

Various and Sundry

Wow it's a dreary day today here at Chez Maude. I had my birthday party last night. It was wonderful. The J cleaned most of the house. But, per S.O.P., everything that we couldn't deal with in 5 hours time when into one of two rooms, so those rooms are yet trashed again until such time as we can sit and deal with them.

But the kitchen is clean. The bedroom is clean. Things are off the floor in the common living spaces, so that's a giant relief right there. However, I VOW to have all of this shit taken care of before the new year, and I'm going to put the J's butt to work over break when he's home.

I wish I could report that now that I've hit 12 weeks that the morning sickness has gotten better, but that's not really the case. It's perhaps a little different now. It's not quite as immediate in the morning. It seems to be hitting later these last two mornings, but it's still there, annoying me.

On our way to CrossFit yesterday morning I was bemoaning the fact that I've already gained 15 pounds (which *all* the books and interwebz say that I should have only gained 5 pounds the first trimester), the J pointed out that it was actually amazing that I had *only* gained 15 pounds. He correctly pointed out that with the way that I've been eating over the last 6 weeks, it should be more like 30 pounds. And he's right. While I'm trying not to be obsessed about my body, my belly is getting rounder; it's getting that "pregnant" shape which is hopefully making me look more pregnant than just flabby.

I know I said that I'd try not to let this become a maternity blog, but I honestly was not expecting this consume my entire life and affect everything that I do. I think I expected some kind of grad school analogy, like this was going to be like coursework or something. You know, something that's time consuming but hasn't quite defined one yet. But this is more like dissertation work. Remember eating, sleeping, breathing the diss? Law & Order marathons to escape the diss? Total exhaustion that even with the best intentions to take care of oneself, which would mean more productivity, goes out the window? Living in piles of books and paper and clutter? That's what this feels like to me. I felt I was defined by being a dissertator in the last years of grad school. Now I find myself defined by my morning sickness, extremely tender boobs (good god, I have never known such pain as what I feel most days in my boobs. If it were cold enough here that I'd be in multiple layers, I'd consider teaching without a bra despite the enormity of these monsters), and the physical limitations of my body*. I didn't think this would happen, like the dissertation process, until much later.

What I have found though, and what I'm thankful for, is that my friends, even the ones without children, are extremely supportive and interested in this whole process. Though like the dissertation, I feel bad talking about it unless others bring it up. So I guess it's been good in that respect.

There's only one thing, thankfully, that I need to get done today: finish Henry James. I should read what I'm teaching in the survey class tomorrow, but I need to read James today. I won't have the opportunity during my office hours tomorrow because at least four students have indicated that they are coming by with drafts of their lit analyses, so I'm assuming that my afternoon will be filled with that. And upon immediately finishing James, I need to jump right in and start on the next thing that I'm teaching after the break. I want to see if over break I can't finish prepping for the quarter for the survey class, and get ahead in the novel class, because at some point I've got to start thinking about that conference paper I need to write by April and those articles that I need to write. So the plan for break will be in getting the place set up and organized and cleaned, thus with the idea of maximizing productivity.

On top of all of that, one of my friends is selling her house. It is by far the first house that we've looked at (on-line at least) that I've fallen in love with. It's within our price range, and they are very very motivated to sell (not that I want to take advantage of my friend, but if they're willing to work with us, damn, how can we pass that up?). I have no idea if we'll even qualify for a home loan right now. But the J is supposed to look into this tomorrow. Plus we need to find out if our landlord will let us out of our lease if we buy a home. I think that the mortgage would be lower than our rent, too. I don't want to get excited because we may not even be able to get a loan, but I love her house. And it would be nice to be settled into our own place before the Magpie arrives than to do it later or after s/he gets here. Even though I'm not excited about the thought of packing and moving, I really want this house. But I want to find out if we qualify for the loan before I even look at it. I'd hate to fall head over heals with it in person and find out we can't get it. But we did qualify for a car loan, so I don't know. Anyway, I want this house.

On that note, I shall go do my best with the James and see if I can't plow through that business today and be done with it for good for the week.

*I hit a PR in my workout yesterday. I've been struggling with overhead squats since day 1, but I squatted heavier and did more reps than I ever had. Safely of course and without discomfort.

Some Much Needed Rest

First of all, thank you Heu Mihi, Sisyphus, Anastasia, and Jane B for your comments on the last couple of posts. The reassurance is helpful, quite indeed, and you tell me the things I need to hear.

I am feeling a bit better today. I slept in. I should have set my alarm for even later rather than hitting the snooze three times, but still. I actually stayed in bed until almost 7 rather than getting up at 5 to read and try to get ahead. I will need to go to campus before class today so that I can skim what I'm teaching--I didn't bring my book home Wednesday night. And I didn't get as far ahead yesterday on James as I wanted to, but I will say this, the day off did me a whole helluva lotta good, so I'm glad that I took it, and I'm glad that I used it to get some reading done and to relax. I thought about cleaning, but that would have worn me out, thus defeating the whole purpose of relaxing. With any luck, I will continue to feel good this afternoon, and I can start on the cleaning when I get home so I don't have to spend all day before my party tomorrow cleaning.

And probably in poor taste, as it's probably never a good idea to email one's boss for a special schedule when one is taking a sick, I did anyway.   The thing that has bothered me so much this year is that, unlike last year, I've not written a single word in terms of my scholarship or anything of the like. I've not even read anything related to research except the first week of Fall quarter classes when I had the abstract due. And that was the last bit of writing I've done. I blame my schedule. And I hate to sound like a whiner, but I want my TR back for myself and my writing.  I am really really really missing that aspect of my career right now. And perhaps that's just adding to my overall crankiness and the like.

Tomorrow marks 12 weeks, the last week of the first trimester, and what I hope is the beginning of the end of all this nausea, although I know that many women don't feel relief until between 15-20 weeks, and my poor cousin was sick and puking every day until the day she gave birth. Man I hope that's not my fate. But it seems that every day brings with it something new, so I won't hold my breath. I've narrowed down the headache issue though to chocolate. Not just all chocolate, but dark chocolate bars specifically, so goodbye wonderful dark chocolate for now.

I guess that's all I have for now. I should walk the mutts and then get to campus so I can prep a bit for today's classes and hopefully continue to have a pretty good day.

Mental Health + Sick Day

Today is the first day in my history of being at Big Little Town U that I've a) taken more of a mental health day than a sick day, although I am sick, still and b) have missed two full entire days of classes.

Because I've been sicker than I had been these last two weeks, I am woefully behind. This is stressing me out, greatly, which I think is adding to my morning sickness. At the very least, I can't imagine that it's helping, even if the two are entirely unrelated. These last two weeks have been the roughest thus far, even with the medicine. I had some bad days earlier on, but they were usually only one or two days a week. Now, I'm sick more often than I'm not.

I am deeply afraid though that I'm turning into *that* colleague or *that* pregnant woman whose only reason for being sick is the result of building a child that she decided to do, and I don't want this to be perceived as affecting my work. I am entirely self-conscious of this. In my defense, I've missed fewer pregnancy related days than some of my colleagues missed last quarter for the flu. Perhaps it's not the same, but I have about as much control over how my body feels as one who has the flu does.

This has been a woefully horrible week. It's the first week really that I've fallen behind and have just been floundering. I don't like that feeling. I don't like feeling like a slacker or a loser here because I'm having trouble keeping my head above water. On top of this, I now seem to be plagued with headaches, and entirely new occurrence here.

While I do so completely want to crawl back into bed, because I know a nice long nap would do me a lot of good, I think what would combat the stress more would be to take advantage of my convalescence and read as much as I can today. It doesn't seem to me like the weekends are enough time for me anymore. And I've even dropped my Saturday work outs for the sake of getting work done.

I think I'm going to request a MWF schedule for next quarter. Yes, it will mean long days on Mondays and Wednesdays, but at least it gives me Tuesdays and Thursdays to recover and work, either prep or actually get my own work done. This five day a week thing is too much for me--I've really grown to hate it. And I've found, too, that I dislike 2 hour undergraduate classes. It takes more energy than I have to expend in one shot right now. But I was thinking about this this morning, and it turns out that I a) do not like late morning/afternoon classes. I thought I might, but I don't, and b) I don't like 2 hour undergrad classes. No. So I've sent off my request to my boss. We'll see what she says. I think I might like that, actually, even if it means I'm on campus from 8:00-4:15 on MW. I can handle that if I have Tuesdays and Thursdays off. And that's what I did at my old job, so we'll see what she says.

In any case, I'm going to take a shower and read and relax. Since I have time to read, I think it will be less strenuous on me. And perhaps I can get ahead. Anyway, I hope no one thinks less of me for ditching teaching in order to destress and catch up.

Meltdown

Yesterday I had my first total and complete pregnancy breakdown. I think this is related both to my hormones, my exhaustion, and my craptacular diet right now which in turn is also a result of my exhaustion and my hormones.

I completely lit into the husband yesterday. To be fair, he did sort of have it coming, but I did it over text message. That's bad. I sent him a courtesy text to let him know I was in a foul mood and mad, and since he said "why?" I used that as a reason to just let loose. He is a good man in that he recognized that all of my complaints were legit, that my yelling at him wasn't unreasonable, and now that the air is cleared, we can move on.

However, because I "emotional ate" yesterday for the first time in seriously like 9 or 10 months, I feel like total and complete crap this morning. As a matter of fact, I'm having leftover pizza for breakfast right now which is so very unlike me.

And I have to confess, I thought I had a good schedule, but it turns out that I hate it. With a passion. And I am, indeed, very much missing semesters right now. Semesters make so much more sense than quarters. One cannot cover the material that needs to be covered in a quarter. Sure, the students probably finish school quicker because the quarter allows them to take 3 more classes a year than on semesters, but I don't think the quality of education is there, to be quite honest. It's like every quarter is a summer session. But whatever. No one is asking me about it.

This is week is not really shaping up to be a good week. I'm exhausted. I'm cranky. I'm having some major digestive issues that I read about but which I was hoping to escape, and it's not like I can take anything for it. So, I just have to deal with it. And while I tried to make the reading for my classes reasonable for my sake at this point, I'm just barely hanging on, and it seems to me like it's just going to get worse before break before it starts to get better.

Look, I'm sorry to be all negative Nancy and all, but right now it's just frustrating. You know? It's like that point when you're sick and you want to get stuff done, you know you need to get stuff done, but your body has completely different plans for you, against which no rebelling is possible? Or if you could just have two days in bed, doing absolutely nothing, so you could totally recharge you'd be better? But alas, that's not possible either? And it's so early in the quarter, and the survey class is already behind, so I can't justify staying in bed today, as much as I really, really REALLY would like to. One and a half weeks left. I can make it.

What I seriously need is that month long semester break. What I long for is that semester break. But here's why it won't happen. This is still a very racist state. And down the street is an historically black university. In the 60s, after desegregation, and I have this on good authority, my school was worried that those students would then try to transfer to my school. So in order to make transferring more difficult, since the other college was on a semester system (and still is), my school switched to the quarter system. Nice, huh? It's so grand to be part of such a racist legacy. And most people suspect that until the other school switches to the quarter system, we will not switch to the semester system. Or, unless we switch university systems as the other major system in the state is a semester system, which I wish it would happen for that reason. Although that might mean a 4-4, but I don't think that's possible if the school is trying to become an R-1. You can't have a 4-4 tenure load at an R-1. Or rather, I can't think of any R-1s with that kind of teaching load. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Well, that being said, I should walk the dogs, unload the dishwasher, and get dinner prepped and in the crockpot so I have no excuses for a good dinner tonight. I may cancel my office hours this afternoon, too if I still feel this crappy after my second class.

Have a grand day 'all. I hope your finals weeks are going well!