End of the Calendar Year

For some strange reason, totally like past years, I find myself mentally drained and unable to perform even the simplest tasks.  So very unsurprising.

Apologizing for Others

The title's not strictly true, but I feel as if I should apologize for the poor teaching by one of our adjuncts.  We (a colleague and I) worked with him over the semester once the student complaints started snowballing.  I put off thinking about it but the first (only?) parental complaint came in, going to the Provost after me.

I want all of our classes to be at least good if not excellent.  This is the third Fall semester in a row where that has not been true.

I could always have spent more time working with the instructor.  That shouldn't be the gauge of my success or failure;  it's not effort that counts here.

Hard to shed the feeling of guilt.

First Saturday in December

Everything is scheduled for the first Saturday of December, because there's nothing else going on that day. Student presentations, Scout camping trip, Messiah sing-a-long, choir concert.

Busy time.  Trying to focus on the things that need to be done, worrying about what remains undone.

Every year about this time the same thing---

Still Even Less Sleep

Still alive and sort of functioning.  Too many nights of five hours or less of sleep.  Having trouble thinking clearly. Able to do complicated tasks that I've done often enough to become reflexive.  Too much work.  Not much play at all.  Jeff very dull boy.

Long Week

I'm having trouble staying awake.  This week has been busy, with meetings with students and faculty.  I've not had many blocks of free time, and the free time that I have had was short enough that I couldn't begin anything that required more than casual thought.

So as is my wont I took a lot of work home with me, and slept little most nights.  Cumulatively it has taken its toll.

Next year this should not be happening, which is hopeful.

Yet Another Late Night on the Laptop

Too many nights this year up late on the laptop, trying to do the work that I couldn't do during the day.  Too many meetings, too many appointments, too many phone calls.  When most of it goes away how will I react?  How long before I start to feel left out, and start seeking out another position of responsibility?

Lost Another Vote

We had a faculty meeting where a proposal was voted down that I and a dozen other folk worked on for the past couple of years.  I don't think it's hit me directly but I can't shake the image of the faces of the other committee members.

I've lost more battles than I've won.  Yet I think I've been successful overall.  Is that rationalization?  Patience?  Outlast your opponents?  I'd rather convert them.

Another Break Come and Gone

Fall Break has ended.  I've approached it as I've approached most breaks---high expectations of catching up on work that fail to be achieved.  Classic case of yet again setting myself up for failure with unreasonable expectations.

I do have fond memories of when I used to finish my Christmas shopping on Fall Break.  Now I order most things on-line.

Sleepless Days and Sleepless Nights

Busy work-week---not enough time at work to get things done, too many meetings and stuff.  Lots of work in the evenings, not much sleep.  Becoming more functional, less creative, less human.

The long-term sleep loss and chair's responsibilities have changed me to the point of feeling damaged mentally.  I wonder if I can recover when I stop being chair.  I don't dislike who I am now but I remember being more and miss it.

Single Parent, for Ten Days

Well, my wife is out of town helping her mother recover from surgery.  I miss her.

So far the workload of being a single parent hasn't been too bad, although I have adjusted my goals downward. Laundry is a pain;  I'm keeping piles separated on the bedroom floor, to help know when I've got enough of a given kind of load.

Our son is at a church retreat this weekend, so he's doing okay.  My daughter seems to be doing well;  we spent most of the day together running errands.

One month done

We made it to October.  The semester has been a blur.  I think that I am making all my deadlines but I also feel overwhelmed.

I'm not sure why exactly.  I don't think that I'm anxious about missing some important details or tasks.  The volume is huge but I think that I've been prioritizing well.  The uncertainty each day as to how much unscheduled time that I will have to do my work is a large part of it.

Back Again Again

I keep losing this task on my to-do list.

I'm fifty now.  That should be a milestone of sorts, and I did encourage everyone around me to treat it that way, if only to get some attention.  But I feel weary and have for years now.  Turning fifty didn't change that.  Sleep apnea, obesity, and diabetes did.

I really want to be able to have a clear thought again.  Stepping down as department chair will help---it will certainly decrease the quantity of tasks.   That'll be a first step.

End of Summer

There are less than two weeks left before we start our planning meetings, with classes beginning the Tuesday after that.  Summer is ending for me.

All my summers involve frustration that I don't get as much done as I hoped.  This summer I think was the worst.  I think I made a sustained effort daily without much traction.  Staffing appears to be set.  I am not ready for my classes.  I am now working on a zero-th draft of a paper.  There are many departmental issues yet to be resolved.

Next summer I won't be department chair, so my load will be lightened.  Seeing that coming is diminishing my enthusiasm for the chair tasks at hand.  Senioritis of a form I guess.

Staffing

I've made an offer that's been accepted by what I believe is my last hire for the Fall adjunct staffing.  Afterward I had a burst of energy about follow-up details.  Then someone pulled the plug on my brain and I struggled for over an hour not to fall asleep.  I think I would have felt better napping for an hour---being more in control of the situation I guess.

There are many possible pitfalls remaining that I would prefer not to dwell upon.  For right now I am glad that it is over.

Adjunct Staffing

I like working with our department's adjuncts, which may be why hiring adjuncts is the greatest stressor in my job.  Every summer that I am chair I need to work to staff sections.

Our long-term adjuncts are pretty self-sufficient.  The new ones that we have hired in past years have been problematic.  Two years ago the new fall adjuncts both had to be let go for poor performance.  It was painful.

I have two conflicting pressures from administration:  to hire excellent teachers but not to offer them a full load that would require benefits.  Having taught part-time I understand how important benefits are.

Last time for me---next summer it is someone else's responsibility.

Scout Camp

Our son left for Scout Camp for a week (leaving Sunday noon, return Saturday morning).  This changes our family dynamic in subtle ways.

Primarily our daughter is freed from her sibling rivalry and competing for attention.  In times past this has relaxed her a bit.  We will see.

Our son has in the past year taken on a lot of responsibility for household chores, so we will have to work a bit harder without him.

Mainly the place will be more quiet, which can be both good and bad.  I think it will be a lonely quiet.  I like our son;  he's good company.

Back From Our Vacation

We've returned from our two week family vacations.  I've always dreaded them as physical ordeals.  The houses are too hot, the beds are uncomfortable, and I just don't sleep well.  At my in-laws, I'm the only morning person so I can't keep up with everyone as they keep going late into the evening.  At my childhood home I'm treated as a 49-year old child.

It's gotten better as the kids have gotten older and more self-sufficient.  When they were younger their neediness just exacerbated everything.  Add an unreliable car to the mix and my stress level went through the roof twice a year.

Now I drive a car that I like better.  The kids are more self-sufficient.  I exercise in the mornings at a gym and get some quiet time.  My smart phone connects me to the outer world, via email, twitter, and facebook.

It's better, but God it's good to be back, and I can't wait to get back to work tomorrow, no matter the size of the pile waiting for me.

New Smartphone

I used to scoff at folk who always got the latest cellphone.  At first it was just packaging the functionality of making a call.  Then cameras started appearing on phones, but I thought that they would never be as good as stand-alone cameras.  When they started browsing the internet is when I really started paying attention.

Then my phone took on the functionality of a PDA, and became a vital productivity tool.  At that point it stopped being a phone but became a PDA that also made calls.

Now I really am starting to think of my new Android phone as a small computer.  It does make me feel old and brittle in my thinking.  I used to be more open to technology trends.

Back to New Haven

My wife's 25th reunion at Yale was this past weekend, and we took the kids.

I still have such mixed feelings about Yale, 24 years after I graduated from graduate school there.  I did spend nine years there, and a lot of who I am now developed there.

I had wonderful opportunities there, learned a lot, made some really good friends.  I was also face-to-face with a lot of privileged people, had to deal with an awful lot of hubris.

The resentments of being a scholarship student among trust-fund students still burn in me, and I'm not proud of that.  If anything, it's pushed me to work harder at my job, to exemplify that it's what you do and not who you are born as that matters most.  Such a chip on my shoulder.

Graduation 2011

It's that time again.  I feel pretty distanced from our graduating class.  Back when I taught Analysis regularly I worked with most of them pretty closely, now, not so much.

I anticipate the long ceremony in the sun in the heavy robes on the tiny folding chairs.  I start getting into a mind-set of just wanting it to be over.

Then afterward we meet and greet the students and their families, and I am lousy at that---my social skills have atrophied, and they were never great to begin with.

Then comes the depression, watching everyone leave, the campus growing still.

I almost wish for rain, but I know that that would mess up graduation for the family members that would not be able to be at the ceremony in person inside.

My Family's Back

My wife and kids were up North this past weekend to attend my niece's First Communion.  I am in the middle of final exams and so we knew from early on that I would be staying home.

The peace and quiet was nice.  I have noticed, though, how much I rely upon others to define my roles in life.  Without them around, even though I used my to-do lists to guide me I still felt rudder-less.

This happens during summer break at work as well.  I follow my to-do list, my own little deity, but don't really feel alive until the school year begins anew.

I do wish that my personality were more self-sufficient.

Winding down

I need to start winding down.  I've been so intense this past academic year, feeling the need to keep getting stuff done to keep from being overwhelmed.

As of yesterday my responsibilities should start to wind down.  I need to write final exams, give them and grade them, but that's just time, not a lot of effort.  I still have one more meeting of our curriculum committee to chair and a department retreat to plan and lead.  I still have to resolve our Fall course schedule and staffing.  But there should be more and more open slots in my schedule.  I should have more time and be able to do things more reflexively.

Which is hard.  Emergencies are easy;  it's the day-to-day stuff where there's higher expectations.  I can always blame my twenty balls in the air for mistakes when I'm swamped.  Work without excuses, that's scary.

I Truly Loathe "I Love Lucy"

I knew that my wife was a fan when I married her.  We all have to make compromises for the ones that we love.  Now our two children are watching DVD's of "I Love Lucy".  Specifically, my daughter with the broken leg is watching the show now while I do schoolwork.

Why do I loathe the show?  I don't enjoy being around folk who act silly I guess.  I do enjoy to talk silly, and a lot of my entertainment is silly, e.g. Monty Python.  But Python's silliness always was subversive.  The characters in "I Love Lucy" are acting out the stereotypes of the women with their roles and men with their roles.  It is repetitive.  It is boring in a loud way.

Another Easter

Well, I've sung in five masses in the past four days, including a three-hour vigil mass last night.  I am tired mentally but my body seems willing to keep going.

My mind feels so revved up from caffeine and too much work that I get too frustrated with our choir director's lack of organization.  I spend a lot of my time in choir waiting to get a chance to sing.

I think that I want to look into taking voice lessons.  I've been losing my skills as a singer since I stopped singing with my university's student group.  I'd like to be better.

Hairline Fracture on Tibia

Well, our daughter has broken her leg.  Is that the correct way to describe it?  She has a hairline fracture on her tibia, apparently near a "growth plate" whatever that means.  She has a cast and must let it heal without putting weight on it, and our lives are turned upside down (again).

We've lost sleep, particularly the first couple of nights as she screamed in pain.  We've taken turns with helping her to the bathroom, etc.  We've taken time off from work.  While she's home she's got the sofa bed open and the TV on loud, so it's been hard to work.  She wakes pretty easily so working late or early is out while she's in the living room.

This is my busiest month of the year, so I'm pretty frazzled.  She broke her leg the afternoon of a date night for my wife and I;  it will be months before I can get my wife's attention again.

I'm pretty self-centered.  I hope that she feels better soon but a lot of that is to make our lives easier.

Another Peaceful Sunday

I've been working on my laptop all day when I've not been cooking.  I can't remember when it wasn't thus, although I imagine it wasn't thus last summer.  The worst part of feeling as tired and overworked as I do is feeling that it has always been this way and that it will always be this way.  This is blatantly untrue, and yet the low-level certainty that I feel is hard to shake.  Maybe this is part of how fatigue distances you from reality.  I know that it has kept me depressed in a way that is very hard to shake.

Back Again

Well, I'm back from a quick conference in Alabama.  Definitely weary.  Lots of stuff waiting for me here at work.

We're on the downhill stretch, 5 1/2 weeks left in the academic year.  Lots to do in a short amount of time.

Good to be with the wife and kids again.  Just wish there wasn't so much to do.

Lonely Campus

Well, here I am in my office on the Friday afternoon of Spring Break.  Our program assistant has left for the day.  There may be other folk in the building but probably not.  There is very little sound coming in from outside the building.

I'm finishing grading some exams and trying to leave things settled before I leave for the day.  I am exhausted---not much good sleep since I returned from my conference in Denver.  It has been very hard to keep my attention focused on any of my tasks.

Need sleep, nothing new there.

Impressions of Denver

Really fun town, at least downtown.  Can't say that I know anything about the rest of the city.

Mix of grunge and yuppies along 16th street.  Tons of restaurants within walking distance of the conference, and the free 16th street shuttle extends my reach.

Denver Pavilion very nice;  enjoyed Barnes and Noble, Jack's Jazz, and seeing a movie all in one location.

Snow on the cars first thing in the morning;  up in the fifties the rest of the day.

Surprised to keep running into folk I know at the conference, which is stupid;  I'm here to network and I've been networking for a couple of decades.

My wife and kids want me to call daily but act very distracted when I do call, kind of frustrating.

My talk went pretty well today.  I'm not smooth but I get more comfortable with the public speaking the more that I do it.

Definitely a place that I look forward to returning to.

Heading to Denver

I'm going to Denver for a conference, where I'll give a talk.

I'm going to Denver to single-task for a few days.  Multitasking has worn me out.

I'm going to Denver for some peace and quiet.  I love my family, but they are unfamiliar with the concept.

I'm going to Denver for my mental health.

I'm going to Denver.

My Mind Has Already Left Town

It's been a rough couple of weeks in terms of my physical well-begin.  Mainly sleep loss coupled with regular exercise at the gym.  When I stop the exercise my blood sugar goes back up, not good for the diabetes.  On the other hand with five hours of sleep a night my muscles and back ache a good deal.

So I've finished the annual evaluations for my department members, and gotten agendas ready for the big meetings that start each month.   There seems to be a massive amount of correspondence related to committees lately.  Mentally I'm wasted, although I seem minimally functional.

I'm giving a presentation mid-month in Denver, which will be my first visit there.  Looking at Google Maps the downtown hotel seems ideally suited for walking and exploring, which contrasts with most of my current experience, sitting and typing.  I am so looking forward to single-tasking, catching up on sleep.

Which makes it harder to do the tasks that I have committed to.  Oh, well, back to work.

Giving Negative Evaluations

I had to write a couple of negative comments on my annual evaluation of one of my department members.  I never handle criticisms well, and I don't think any of us in the department do.  (S)he didn't.

So I did what I've done before, negotiated.  If he would address the topics of my comments in her/his self-evaluation, I would back off from what I had written a bit---still list the factual component, but note that (s)he was addressing it.

I think I held my own better today than I have in the past.  Am I growing in integrity or just stubbornness?  More the latter I suspect.

Another year of being chair and I am done with this sort of thing, for a while anyway.

A Leisurely Day

I'm not sure how ironic the title of this post is.

I slept nine hours, which is something that usually takes me two days to accomplish, which is good.  It leaves me feeling sleepier though.  It reveals in greater detail my abyss of cumulative sleep loss.

I spent the day writing exams for my two classes.  I like writing exams.  They have to be good assessment tools but I usually find a way to introduce new concepts and examples.

So instead of spending time with my wife and children I spent most of the day with my laptop.  When I hear someone spout the cliche about no one regretting on their deathbed that they didn't spend more time at work, I always think to myself "how wrong you are".

Positive Feedback

I both gave and received positive feedback today, which feels nice.  Both meetings were in the morning.

First I discussed my annual performance review with our program assistant, who is terrific.  The first few years that I supervised her I was able to offer constructive criticism, but the past two years I haven't been able to find anything to improve.

Immediately afterward I met with my dean and one of the associate deans, who basically liked the work that I was doing and asked in great detail my plans for when I step down as department chair.

It will be more real when I see it in writing, and yet I can stand being praised and thanked, quite a nice morning overall.

This moment in time is intrinsically tied to the moments that proceeded it, by definition this past year.  I have been working pretty hard, and so has our program assistant.  Weird how a range of time can be tied to the moment of articulation.

New Medium

I've decided to try keeping my journal online.  The tension is to explore my thoughts meaningfully while not revealing too many personal details.  Plus it will look cooler.

My life is cacophonous.  It is hard to find time to contemplate;  I move from stimulus to response and back again so many times during the day, and am overwhelmed with fatigue when I close my eyes at night.

This should improve in the coming academic year as my service commitments start to expire.