RBOC: 'Cause It's All I Can Muster

Earlier this week I realized that I'm done.  I can't do any more.  I can't.  Finishing (and defending) the dissertation, conducting a national job search, teaching eight classes, handling a recurring medical issue, and dealing with the ordinary occurrences of life . . . I'm done.  I can't do any more of anything.  I can't.  Who knew this year would end up being so hard.  I surely didn't.

Therefore, some random bullets of crap:

• The dissertation has been electronically submitted to ProQuest . . .  all 454 pages of it.  If I had it all to do over (and thank the gods I don't), I'd scale so far back . . . I ended up writing the quantity of two dissertations and both of them were badly written.  (Wishing I had had a little more direction with these two dissertations, but there you go.)

• The Bundle came home for Easter.  It's wonderful to have her home.  I'm beginning to understand what it's like to separate from her and be OK with that separation. She thought looking for Easter eggs was a real pain . . . until she found the first one, then she had fun.  (There were only 15 of them and they were all in one room.)

• The students this semester (most of them) have been just wonderful. There are others, however, who are about the worst I have ever had.  Apathetic, entitled, superior, rude . . . and rest assured, these are the students who will be the first to complain when they don't get the "A+" they expect. 

• Maybe it's my deep fatigue, but the snarky (OK, just hateful) attitude of some people who are in positions to know better just astounds me.   It is people like these who give this profession a bad name.  Trust me on this one.

• My dreams lately have been oddly disturbing:  old boyfriends (each night a different guy) and we were doing something indicative of that relationship (music, motorcycles, literature).  Maybe it's a way to say "goodbye" before I move on.  Who knows.  Still odd, though.

• I am so ready to move on I can't explain it.  I'm ready.  Now.  Desiring to shake the dust off my boot soles (the boots with the bootstraps I've used to pull myself up) and move on.

Comments

[joannamary]

Billie, where are you moving to? You've certainly earned the medal for doing the job that must be done, over and over again. How is your furniture shopping going? I'll bet you're loving that!

Are you going to C and W? I might--I've stepped back from presenting and am now deliberating whether or not to just go and see everyone and learns a few things. You asked earlier if anyone was using graphics and design in their work ,and I am in my textspace that will finally have lurched its way into being a first draft by summer's end. If we're both at the conference, I'll show you some of the things I've done--not much, but that's what revision's for, right?

[Billie]

Thanks, Joanna. I'm moving to Corpus Christi in July (Texas A&M Corpus Christi). I am only looking at furniture right now, trying to decide what I want. The final decision will depend on what kind of living space I find. I am going to give my current furniture (most of it) to my daughter and I'm getting all new stuff. :-D I've been "reinventing" myself this year, and getting new furniture is part of that reinvention process. And thanks for the medal comment. I'm not sure why what I do is so hard, but it can be.

About C&W: I hadn't thought about it, but now that you mention it, I might just go. I need to travel and think about other things. Let me check into it and I'll send you an email. :-)