The Further Adventures of Deluzy

Four Steps to Better Work Boundaries

Link: Four Steps to Better Work Boundaries.

Uh, I think I need to adjust these to an academic context and think about them.

They're difficult to manage before tenure -- but also probably not only possible but essential to getting tenure.

Seriously.

"Adequate" = good enough

My to-do list is such that I'm going to have to settle for ... well, settle, period.

• The papers I need to grade are getting done -- slowly, not that well, but the stacks are decreasing. I'll be handing them back to students past the point that I should -- but hey, at least I'm not throwing them in the garbage can, as my father apparently did with his students' papers toward the end of his life (a faculty member's fantasy -- and of course, he was too far gone not to play that one out!). That's actually one of the rare stories about my father that I enjoy, perversely enough.

• I've read through the assigned reading and written a brief, unexciting lecture for one class -- but that piece of work is done.  I'm about to do the same for another class.

• I made minimal revisions to a course proposal -- but I think I made the changes that were mandatory and that should get me the dean's signature on the approval form in order for me to file the proposal for the next round of reviews at the university level.

• I responded, though not extensively, to this week's graduate student drafts of their thesis proposals -- and if they want more feedback, they can consult other faculty.

I think that's it so far, and I have miles to go before I sleep. It's a busy week coming up, and I'm sure I'll complain about it here as it progresses (or not -- if I'm silent, it's because I've been inundated).  However, I'm simply not going to get hysterical trying to do it all perfectly. 

That's the point of today's post.  Perfect isn't possible in the first place -- it's against human nature. And in my case, my perfectionism is ultimately all about the need to control and the fact that I feel inadequate if I'm less than perfect -- which is to say, not so secretly I feel inadequate most of the time!  A nice trap I've constructed for myself, eh?

Still, I'm less willing than I used to be to turn myself into a pretzel trying to achieve the impossible.  The world will not stop spinning on its axis if I return student papers late, am not riveting at all times during lecture and discussion, present a merely competent proposal rather than a fabulous one, or have graduate students who are unable to make progress with their proposals as quickly as they'd like because of where they themselves are at in their own thinking.

Or, to put it another way, the world is not All About Me.

(Now, is that a comforting thought to me-- or a distressing one?!)

Taking a break

I made up a new to-do list -- and it's frightening.

To make myself feel better, I ordered some Circa organizer supplies from Levenger. It beats having a Twinkie, under the circumstances, but it's an analogous behavior.

The thing about Levenger is, it's a lot like Coach (and many other companies): its stuff is beautiful (and before Coach capitulated to trendiness, its stuff was more beautiful than it is now, by far) but utterly and completely non-essential.  It sells pure luxury items.  Yes, many are functional as well -- but those functions could be (and are) fulfilled by much less expensive products at much cheaper venues. I know because those other venues are where regular folks -- like me -- usually shop.

I struggle with the whole idea of luxury and privilege more and more as I get older -- not that you can tell from today's purchase (and hey, struggle and talk are cheap).  I like it (as evidenced by my choice of an Alaskan cruise for a holiday next May and my plans to Do Nothing on the ship), but I also feel guilty as hell when I opt for it.  As I get older and am also better paid and more responsible than I was earlier in my life, I become increasingly uncomfortable with luxury and privilege generally.

Because while I'll be floating on the high seas or organizing my life in a high-end notebook, others within a few miles of me will be going hungry, worrying about their kids, whatever.

What's that saying?  “For of those to whom much is given, much is required”?  (I think that's John F. Kennedy --  but actually, I think it's really the New Testament [yup, I just looked it up: it's Luke 12:48]).

The concept applies to more than the just the Kennedys and to the extremely wealthy of this world, of course. It applies to each of us, and it exhorts us to use our gifts, whatever they may be, to benefit not just ourselves but those who don't have those same gifts.  It doesn't refer simply to material goods: it refers to other gifts as well. The most destitute among us have gifts to share, if their lives are such that they have the wherewithal to do so.

Okay, so I use some of my so-called gifts for others.  Sometimes.  Now and then.  Even, at times, when it's distinctly unpleasant.  But most of the time? Come on. Basically I lead a very, very solipsistic life.  Being an introspective, thoughtful person -- and I am that (i.e., thoughtful as in I think a lot, not as in I'm so considerate) -- doesn't make me less solipsistic.  In fact, it may make me more so.

And no, I don't think this ethical dilemma that I'm writing -- well, not about, exactly, but around -- here is solved by balancing out one's more self-indulgent behaviors or purchases by taking with one hand and giving with the other. In other words, I give to charities, I volunteer for various causes -- but that still doesn't address fundamental, systemic inequities I see around me. It doesn't even touch them.  It's better than nothing -- but not by much, frankly.

Hmm.  What a wildly uncomfortable thought on which to end this post! My to-do list is a picnic compared to this ...

Just the facts, ma'am

Double-check everything.  Everything. 

When you're going after something you want (e.g., a degree, a job, weight loss surgery, a trip, whatever -- I don't care what it is), don't rely on the first set of instructions you receive. Get  them in writing, read through them, and consult with other entities involved in whatever procedures you need to follow. Keep a written list of who you've talked to and when about what.  Document everything you do in writing.

In other words, be anal.

In general, I tend to follow my own advice on such matters most of the time, but it's the details that others are supposed to handle for me and that I don't check until the last minute (i.e., the ones that I know in the back of my mind I need to check on but figure oh, it'll be all right because I'm tired and they ought to have been taken care of) that tend to screw me up. Because, of course, most people aren't as anal as I, and there's a lot of alienated labor working in any large bureaucratic system (e.g., health care, universities, insurance), and that means the ball will be dropped sooner rather than later.

Such was the case today with a university-related matter.  Suffice to say that it means  I will have more work than ever to do this weekend which is already massively overbooked -- but at least I caught the error (not mine, I might add) late on Friday afternoon, and the deadline is end of day Monday.  Never mind that I'll be racing all day to meet it in and around my other obligations.  At least I caught it in time.

I'm feeling a little sorry for myself this evening because, really, "overworked" doesn't begin to describe my current situation. 

On the other hand, I apparently have enough time to blog. And I have an Alaskan cruise to look forward to in May 2008.  So I should count my blessings, take a deep breathe, and chill the fuck out.

But first I think I'd better go update my to-do list so that I can get a jump on my day tomorrow. It will be an early one.

Thought for the day

"We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world: it is to transform them in ourselves and others."

                                                                  - Albert Camus

No Impact Man: Living in gratitude instead of desire

Link: No Impact Man: Living in gratitude instead of desire.

Wonderful blog, great post. 

The piece below is featured on No Impact Man's blog and deserves widespread distribution, as do his own reflections.

Myself, I'm printing this out and keeping it on my desk at work and at home.

Click the image above for a larger version.

Unmoored

Today is one of those days when my weight seems absolutely arbitrary. 

I've noticed this along the weight-loss path, and I think it's tied to the fact that WLS patients lose weight relatively rapidly compared to those who lose weight through more conventional means. You don't really have time to adjust to the dramatic change in numbers as it's happening because it happens so quickly.

Now, I've been very lucky, I know, to experience relatively few head-trips along the way.  Weight loss didn't screw with my head or my self-concept or my marriage. I'd been through a lot emotionally beforehand, and so the duodenal switch was a life-saving miracle for me -- albeit with its own share of health trade-offs and issues -- but not a cataclysmic, world-altering experience. For that I'm ultimately very grateful.

Still, there are odd moments.  What I mean by "arbitrary" is that sometimes -- today, for example -- if you changed the first number in my weight from a "1" to a "2," I'd believe it.  The scale may say 154.-something, but I feel as if it could just as easily say 254.-something.

It's not exactly that I still feel fat, or that I look in the mirror and still see a fat person.   It's more that either number -- 154 or 254 -- seems equally likely, equally possible, to me.  There's nothing in my head that marks me as definitively either one. 

I feel the same way about my age as I age, incidentally.  I'm 46 -- but if you told me I were 36 or 26 or maybe even 16, I think I might believe you.  For a few seconds, at least.

Age and weight are such immediate, external identifiers in our culture, and yet, of course, they reveal exactly nothing about a person.  Not really. Not at the core.

(This is not a particularly profound thought, I realize, and still less an original one -- but it does strike me with some force today.)

Not as macho as I thought

Today's a day on campus and yet I didn't sit down to work at 5 a.m., as I usually do on days that I go to the university. 

I have a huge amount of work but no immediate pending deadline, and so when I woke up at this morning with a napping kitty on top of me, I just couldn't face the pre-dawn hours.

I turned off my alarm, shut my eyes, and didn't get up until 7 a.m.  Sheer hedonism!

An hour and 15 minutes later, after sorting through email, I can now attend to my day.  Deep breath.  It will all get done because -- it just does, one way or another.  At least, all the things that must get done.

P.S. My students did their reading for yesterday's class -- and of course, as a result, the class itself was much more pleasant and productive than it had been last week.  Even they had to admit that. 

Just when I get thoroughly exasperated, they manage to disarm me.

Monday

If it's Monday, I must have sat down to my desk to work at 5 a.m.  It is and I did. 

Actually, I was a few minutes late because all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep.  But here I am, it's not yet 6 a.m., I've begun some reading for this morning's first class, and I have to make up a quiz.  Because while I am up at 5 a.m. reading, I doubt seriously that my students are, and that's a problem.  Not that they have to do their reading at a specified time -- but they do have to do it. They don't seem to like the idea of that.  Also, if they don't understand something, they give up after the first page of an article. There's no concept of perseverance or trying to extrapolate.

So I'm done with spoon-feeding. Now I'm moving on to Nasty Pop Quizzes.

The highlight of today will be 1) surviving it; 2) dressing nicely.  I'm serious.  Mondays are such long days that the only way to keep myself going is to wear something I feel good in.

Okay, that and packing a nutritious bag of protein-rich foods.  And water.  It doesn't matter how rushed I am -- that much I have to make time for.

Wish me luck!

Slacker -- sort of

I didn't grade any of the papers I have piling up.  And another set is due tomorrow.  Sigh. I did other kinds of work, but I didn't grade. It's the one part of my job I really, really hate, but of course that's true of most professors.

At large public universities in the U.S. there's an increasing emphasis on something called "standards and assessment," as there is at the K-12 levels, and it affects everything from teaching to learning (or lack thereof) and grading. 

My graduate student grader wanted to know if I had a "rubric" by which he could grade. Nice idea in theory, but no, a student doesn't automatically fail an assignment because he or she hasn't formatted a reference according to MLA guidelines. Perhaps he or she is an engineering major; perhaps English is not his or her first language; perhaps he or she works 30-40 hours a week in addition to taking 5 college classes.

You know? Life within an impoverished state university system that ultimately emphasizes teaching over research is like that.

I mean, I often wish I were at a more privileged school  where one such Platonic ideals and hard-and-fast categories could make my decisions for me, but I'm not.  Furthermore, I'm in the humanities and arts, and I resist such notions of pseudo-objectivity anyway.

Despite my instructions and the guidelines I did give my grader, I know he'll grade his set of papers harder than I'll grade mine -- which is ultimately why I haven't been in a hurry to get to mine: I know I'll need to take another week to go through his work, adjust grades as needed, and give him feedback to bring him in line with my own expectations. It's part of the learning process for him, and it's part of my obligation to him and to my students to make sure that he and I are more or less in the same ballpark.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I'm not looking forward to the grading when I do get around to it. I'll probably be starting it sometime tomorrow and finish in a week or two -- until the next round.

Er, can you tell it's Sunday night and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the approaching work week?  It'll be fine, though -- ultimately it always is.