Well, I was doing pretty good with posting everyday for about a week. Then final portfolios came in. I graded a bunch, several students surprised me with the excellence of their revisions, which means I had more As than expected this semester. That's a good feeling, once you get over the whole "am I inflating grades!?!?! oh noes!!!" anxiety. Despite feeling like a loser teacher and hating my classes (I believe I told my department that one particular class is soul-sucking, which then resulted in the formation of a committee to fix the class because most of our department refuses to teach this class), most of my students showed marked improvement and demonstrated that they had indeed learned a lot. They may forget it all over break, but they can at least talk the talk. So really, the semester ended better than I thought it would.
Then it rained buckets. In my living room. And I had a migraine for two days that didn't respond to meds. And I did the online "treat your coworkers with respect" course that everyone at my uni has to do; it is so patronizing. And now it's sunny again, and the property manager says we'll get the roof fixed this weekend.
So that's what I've been doing. And Warcraft. As it is a break, I have renewed for a month. Husband and I have been playing. I haven't started diss work, but there's so much going on this week, I decided to just get my office set up this week and start after Xmas. I am going to make a plan/schedule for myself tomorrow though.
We're staying here for xmas this year. Usually we go to Landlocked state and spend three weeks shuffling back and forth between family. It costs us at least $2000 every time we visit (we get cheap tickets, stay with family, drive family cars, etc.--when we have to rent a car or can't get cheap tickets, it's way more). And it is often frustrating because so many people keep asking us when we're going to see them which results in us having to drive all over the place rather than people coming to us (I mean, we did just fly 5,000 miles to get there; why can't they drive 30 minutes to get to us?). It gets stressful, fast. And no one seems to appreciate how much money and time we spend every year to see them. No one comes to see us in Island State* and everyone always complains about how far away we live and how long it's taking me to get my degree. They miss us, I know, but I am looking forward to a less-stress holiday season. We don't have four family homes to visit for xmas this year, and while I am sad that I don't get to see everyone, my nephew in particular, a calm xmas seems really nice.
*not true. My mom came to visit once, just because she could. And Husband's parents came for his thesis show. And my mom and my sister are pretty good about thanking us for coming. We stay with my sister a lot, and my mom comes to us (we go to her house too, but she's good about gauging how tired we are). I think they realize what a big deal the travel is.
2 comments:
We didn't go to New Orleans (where my entire family lives) for pretty much the same reason. Costs about $2000 to get there, and then once we're there we spend the entire time driving around to see people who don't really seem to really what we've gone through to get there; who aren't really that pleased to see us, frankly. (Not saying your family isn't -- mine isn't.) And my family, aside from my parents, have never come to see us. We always have to go there. Granted, they all live there, and only we live here, but still.
Plus, travel *gives* me migraines, and my family does nothing but fight with me once I'm there. Plus, we're not Christians, and all of them are. We don't even celebrate the holiday! It's not our holiday. Which is a big aggravation when it comes to the Churchy bits. My mother always wants to take the kid to church, and I always have to draw the line -- every single time, every year, like we didn't have this same exact fight last year.
So, even though my kid likes seeing her cousins, this year we're skipping it.
It's a lot better so far!
(Sorry for venting on your blog.)
S'okay. Blogs were made for venting.
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