This UThink blog remarks on something I've been feeling for just about a week: a desire to curl up in bed and stay there until about April.
At first I attributed it to a sort of adrenaline "let-down" after finishing my first prelim (which was REALLY stressful) last weekend. But there might be something in this seasonal change, too. I'm sleepy, even though I sleep plenty, and I am apathetic. I skipped Polish class last week, and hence haven't done any Polish work for almost two weeks, yet I still don't really care. I have so much to do, yet I can't seem to motivate to do any of it.
I brought home 10 more papers from the office to grade tonight. I've done more than half, but there are still many, many more to do. And next weekend it'll be the next assignment. Dissertation proposal? It's not happening, folks.
Oh, the soul-sucking nature of grading. Been working on it all day, no end in sight, very little "produced." (My brother called; we don't talk very often so it was a rare pleasure to chat.)
I don't like that I am evaluating students. I would rather have a conversation and ask them about things they've written. I have been writing my comments as questions rather than judgments, because I'm really trying to avoid the "if you don't think as I do you are wrong" mentality. But there are still some (unthinking) attitudes that bother me that I think need to be challenged:
1. rich people live in nice expensive lofts and the homeless used to live there but now they've been shoo'ed out by the cops and security people, and that is the natural order of things.
2. "upper class" professionals cruise the skyways and shop on Nicollet and if I do well in college I can join them. And that is the natural order of things.
3. Downtown Mpls is the better for all this investment and gentrification. (Ooh, bright, shiny malls and hip, expensive stuff!) And that is the natural order of things.
Sense a theme? I am not some sort of rage-against-The-Man socialist (compared with my colleagues, anyway) but I am annoyed by the white-bread, black-and-white acceptance of existing socio-economic relations as "the way things are." This course is not developing any kind of alternate views - and that really bothers me. The field work is just out there for people to see what they will, and the lectures discuss theoretical models, and no one is saying, "why should it have to be this way instead of some other way?"
...then you don't. I was thinking I'd already written about our phantom tenants, but perhaps not. I don't seem to write here very often anymore.
Anyways, we had prospective tenants - a couple with two grown children plus a cousin and his GF. Six people, too many really for our little house. But after we said the lease would be for a year (a little less, actually, allowing us to rent it again next fall or possibly even live there) they called the leasing agent, complained bitterly, and scotched the deal. She went over to talk to them the next day, but it didn't help. Apparently they thought the house was theirs to rent indefinitely.
I would have tried to be more flexible but their credit was so poor and the family circumstances so odd that I kind of wanted the ability to have them out next summer if we'd have always had to be chasing them for the rent.
I don't know how much longer we can manage with no tenants. Not with our high overhead - we've gotten accustomed to the income.
In which the author writes down several unrelated thoughts, any which of one could be expanded into a full blog entry (but, mercifully for you, dear reader, isn't).
1. The "slow" postcard from Krakow arrived yesterday. On August 12, I sent two postcards to B. I sent one by "fast post" and it arrived within a week (it was here waiting for us when we got back from Boston). The second was sent by regular (or slow) post, and took 1 month and 25 days to arrive. I understand now why the Center for Emerging Democracies (that isn't the real name) was interested in using me as a courier to Warsaw back in March. Speedy mail is the foundation of democracy.
2. Twice this week I watched cars speed through red lights, after the other direction had already turned green and cars were starting to roll forward. Two near misses - what is the deal? Now that I've been biking, I find that I am a MUCH more careful driver. Maybe a few weeks of urban biking should be required for all license-holders. Once a year or so, just as a reminder.
3. My first prelim is in 9 days. I don't know how to prepare or what to expect, and I don't have much time to devote to prep, what with all the daily obligations. I am reading right now for my second prelim, because someone recalled one of the books, and I'd better read it before it disappears into the void. Someone is evidently doing a very similar project: books that are "on shelf" when I look in the catalog have disappeared by the time I get to the stacks, leaving just the gap where they were. Or, perhaps I have a double? I sure hope SHE is ready for prelims!