A quick poll.

How long does it take you to get out the door in the morning, and why?

Lately, I've needed almost two full hours, and it's got nothing to do with dress, makeup, or hair. I generally know what I'm wearing the night before (it's not laid out or anything, but it's in my head) and makeup has become a 2-minute thing since the Iredale happened. Hair? Pbbbt. (See previous post about feeling ugly and needing haircut.)

Anyway, even if I'm doing "dress-up," it takes maybe 20 minutes to get ready.

The rest of the time? Coffee, email, computer... general waking up crap. I need to cut that down, people. I've become so used to my morning routine that it's beyond routine and into albatross-land.

Goals for tomorrow:

• up at 7:30, leave here at 8:45 - still working on this.
  
• another paragraph of dissertation
• attend 4pm workshop
• whore self out to new department

No, the workshop is *not* on whoring, and I get a free dinner from it.

Hmmm....

Bullets of good.

• I now have this for my 45-minute drives. I tried it out this morning, and it seems to work pretty well.
• The beer t-shirt I wanted finally arrived. Okay, it arrived awhile ago, but it's still making me happy (translation: "being foolish doesn't hurt.")

• This afternoon I went into the office and wrote another two paragraphs-of-diss, along with finishing all my lecture review for tonight.
• Finally, since part of tonight's class is a film, I can probably get the papers for seminar graded and handed back tomorrow. How's that for multi-tasking?

Huh?

About ten minutes ago I stuck my head in Mr. Squirrel's office to say hello.

He's busy, fine. As I'm leaving - because he's so busy - I suddenly get:

Him: "Why do you study gender and sexuality?"*
Me: Uh... I started studying it in my Master's program, and I still do...
Him: "Right, but why?"

Apparently in 30 seconds or less, I'm supposed to explain this to my partner of six years? He's too busy working on lecture notes to give me the time of day, but this we can cover? Because apparently he hasn't been paying attention for.... six years?

Then suddenly he's saying how odd it is that I discuss these issues on the phone with my parents and my siblings. Right, because the first two weeks of a new semester, no one on the face of the earth discusses the topics their classes are covering. Especially not on the phone, with family. And especially not when members of the family also teach university.

[* I figure it's pretty obvious I teach about gender issues... since it's just a sub-field in what I do, it's not really that compromising, identity-wise.]

Goals for tomorrow

• Get into office by 7:30am. (Gives me three hours of work time before classes). Okay, so I left here at 7:30, but I was in the office by 7:45 and that counts. Damn it.
  
• Write one paragraph of chapter four. Yes, I'm serious: a paragraph. Yes, it was only a paragraph. The good news is, it was a paragraph that started a thought about the dissertation that was completely new. Now I have something to develop over the next week.
  
• Spend 1/2 hour at gym. Er... I was tired, 'cause I'm not used to getting up at 6am. I'm still eyeing my exercise bike, though.
  

These are itty-bitty goals. I need goals this small, right now.

Boring and ugly.

This is how I feel, lately.

Some of it is the extra weight, but a lot of it is not. I feel as though I've lost my edge... I've lost whatever is was that made me feel interesting.

This is not a good way to feel.

Oh good gosh, I do *not* want to go to class tonight.

I thought everything was fine, and then I realized I have no idea if my classroom has any technology. This is one of those stupid Margie issues: I checked on three of the classrooms, and put this off (a month ago) because I couldn't find the classroom services office at this school.

Then, I forgot that I'd put it off - can you say "need to make lists"? - and was happily moving something from my DVR to a tape for class when Mr. Squirrel said something about a lack of technology, at this school.

I think I requested a tech classroom when I took the job, and I think that was confirmed, but I can't find any of those emails.

I have a backup plan for tonight, but next week sorta revolves around clips of a film and I'm not sure how I'll do that.

Other than that, it's only a matter of ditching every single powerpoint I use and going back to a chalkboard. Oooh, fun!! Not.

working

Was reading many blogs the other day, and saw someone's* goal for the new year was to treat their adjuncting like an actual job, instead of acting like it's something temporary.

It's stuck with me since I read it. Even on a visiting contract last year, I didn't feel any sense of permanance. The department was great, but space is at a premium... I was moved into a large office, but it was also where the work-study students worked.

Now I'm back adjuncting at three different schools, but if I don't find some sense of "job," I'm going to lose it. I've dragged my coffee pot into the adjunct office at one school (the close one, where I teach MWF) and I'm buying a plant, damn it. The coffee pot seemed to freak out one of the other adjuncts.

I would love to be able to leave my laptop in the office, too, but it's too risky with six people wandering in and out.

The alternative to all this is to figure out a way to re-structure my home office for more work potential... that would definitely involve another table (my desk is filled up with computer stuff) and some kind of screen.

*When I find it again, I'll link to it!!