How Soon Is Friday?

Oof.

I have a to-do list a mile long, and let's just note that I can't make myself do anything today. I'm exhausted. I'm done. I'm pissed off and irritable and feeling overworked and underappreciated. Woe is me. And let's just note that It's only week 4.

If I can make it to Friday, I have high hopes that this weekend will offer ample time for me to rejuvenate and get myself back on track in some sort of fashion. Looking at things objectively, my life is really not so awful, but work has just been.... Ok, you know how people talk about how rewarding being a professor is? Well, most of the time, for me it is that. But there are also times (as in any job I know there are) where the work just seems harder, more stressful, more thankless, and more work than others. This is one of those times.

Luckily, one of my major service things of this year is over as of yesterday, so that is a good thing. And also luckily I'm teaching a book that I know backwards and forwards tonight, and another I know backwards and forwards tomorrow. And I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow, which will surely provide a boost. In other words, I need to stop whining and just make it through to tomorrow afternoon.

I also have tentative plans with BES tonight, and if those come to fruition, I think that will be a fun respite in my otherwise lame and stressful week, even though of course she's feeling very stressed and in need of an ear. I think it will do me good to help her with her stressful things as opposed to thinking about my own stressful things. Just like the bright spot in my day yesterday was meeting with a recent grad to help her think through her teaching presentation for Teach for America.

See, that's the thing: the things that are filling me with crankiness having nothing to do with teaching or with scholarship. Nor do they have to do with my personal life (such as it is). No, they have to do with all of the other bullshit crap that is my job. If I could just erase all of the bullshit crap, then things would be grand. The problem is, the "bullshit crap" is not eraseable, much to my dismay.

Ok, time for me to accomplish at least a few of the things on my list so that I'm not cranky when I teach this evening and so that I am a good teacher as opposed to a stressed and lazy one.