This is week six of the semester (or six-and-a-half, since this fall we started on a Wednesday instead of Monday...but don't get me started on that). I am feeling pretty bad, actually. For the past few days I've found myself having trouble with my feelings and my motivation. Everything seems pointless. I feel mechanical in class, like I remember how to teach but I'm just in costume for an hour (tell this joke here, point out this fact there). I don't look forward to going to class. It seems like none of the students understand anything and none of them care, either way. I'm cold all day and all I want to do is go home, and when I get home I feel like I should at least do something I enjoy so I knit a little or read a little or go for a walk in the park, and maybe it helps a bit. Hanging over me is the thought that tomorrow will be just the same awful and if I go to bed it will just come sooner but I can't not go to bed. Thank Bob I'm able to sleep, at least until 4 or 5 in the morning. The only thing I can imagine making this worse is having the insomnia I had last winter-spring.
The emotion I feel most often, other than that hopelessness, is anger. I'm angry that I'm being asked to do things I don't care about. I'm angry that nothing makes any difference. I'm angry about specific things and things in general.
That cursed book chapter is still not finished. I wrote it. I submitted it in July. I argued with the editors about copyright for three weeks. (The editor insisted that one of my figures - that I made myself - was taken from a textbook and I should get permission to use it.) I received reviews. I gritted my teeth and revised the chapter accordingly. I resubmitted that version in September. This week the editor sends me a list of other things she wants me to do: add a reference, redo the copyright form a different way than she told me in August, confirm something else. I never want to look at it again. It makes me angry that every time I think I'm "done," it just keeps coming back. I never want to work on a project with this publisher again.
I was asked to be on a task force last week. The message only contained the name of the task force and the question would I do it? Least-favorite admin (LFA) was cc'd, so I assumed LFA would be chairing the task force. I asked for clarification on the parameters (such as: how long was the commitment? how frequent would we meet? how many people?) and the original person answered that it was for two years of monthly meetings. Well, that sounds like a long time to me. And I've been on lots of task forces and other groups who do a ton of work that ends up going nowhere, or gets half-assed because the college doesn't want to invest the money necessary. I don't need that. I also don't need any more meetings with LFA. So I said no. I did talk it over with my department and one of the guys (H) said he might be interested, so in my email declining to serve I mentioned H as a possibility. The original person thanked me for my answer and for suggesting H. Within five minutes, LFA wrote "oh, but H is already doing these two other things, will he have time for this too?" I sense that the other things I'm already doing did not merit similar concern for my time and I'm doubly glad I turned this down, but it makes me angry that my time is not considered valuable.
