Civilization

It's still very dark (and cold!) out right now - 6:58am, exactly 30 minutes after I got up. My first class starts in a few hours. About 60% of my lectures are written(-ish) but I still have a lot to do. I'm especially concerned about running out of material for my ancient world class. There is only so much I have to say about the Egyptians at the moment.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm pretty annoyed at having dug myself back into the position I was in the whole time I was a graduate student: perpetual guilt tied to perpetual work. As a graduate student, by definition, if you aren't working, you're slacking. Every minute of every day should, in some sick sense, be devoted to working on articles or languages or review. For most people, this results in a nauseating cycle of procrastination and desperation that only lets up when they've finally reached their mental limit and declare to everyone within earshot that they just don't give a shit anymore and they stomp off to cry themselves to sleep. I was happy to leave that behind.

Yet, somehow, here I am again: desperately battling the clock to get enough prepped while still working part-time in IT. Twice a week this term I will be jetting downtown after I teach in the morning to put in a long afternoon at the software company, along with all day on Fridays. B now has to do all of the heavy lifting with Plan C while she (Plan C) is teething, transitioning to the crib, and otherwise going through growing pains.

Lest you think this is all idle complaint, let me restate my intentions for the edification of the interwebs: never again will I do this kind of crap. I will turn things down rather than oversubscribe. We moved here, I abandoned all hope of a professorship at a four-year, because we wanted to live and be happy (-er) in Portland, not so that I could become a new version of Captain McGrumpyPants. ForSOOTH!

Yours,
-Captain McGrumpyPants