For the Weak

Spring semester: day four

Upon returning home from my class yesterday morning, I ate lunch and then found myself to be really, really tired. Not exhausted, can't-stay-awake or bodily-shutdown tired, but just sleepy. Daisy was still sleeping, of course, as she does try to keep her circadian rhythms at least somewhat regulated even when she's off work, though sometimes that works better than others. I hadn't heard from her all day, though I'd messaged her to let her know when I was leaving and when I'd returned home safely, as I always do.

By 2:30 or 3, I knew that I just needed to nap. I didn't know why, really, but I knew I needed to. I'd slept well on Wednesday night -- early to bed, early to rise and all that -- but I think my body knows when my work week has finished, and decides to put me in hibernation mode when it does. I later told Daisy that more than anything else it's probably my allergies messing with me as well as the fact that I'm still trying to get back into a "go teach every day" groove. It's not that my schedule is grueling (because it isn't), it's that I once more have a schedule compared to the past six weeks when I did not.

It also didn't help that yesterday was quite possibly the coldest day I've had to leave the house and go teach in for, maybe...two years or more? Something like that. It was in the single digits yesterday morning when I left the house, the windchill was -10 to -25, depending on how hard the wind was blowing and what part of the state you were in, and the Monte Carlo had a little trouble starting up. It also didn't get its heater warm until I was about four or five miles from campus -- my entire drive down to West campus, I could see my breath in the car. When it's as cold as it was yesterday, said car will almost never get warm enough to be comfortable. The warmer it is outside, the faster the heater will start to work. So, that being said, I'm really looking forward to low temperatures being in the 30s or 40s sometime soon, as it takes about five minutes for it to warm up when it's around those temps outside.The high temperature yesterday barely reached 20, and may not have even gotten there, as it hadn't when I took a nap.

At around 3 or so, I went downstairs, turned on the electric blanket, and went to sleep. It didn't take long to fall asleep; I was fully unconscious within fifteen minutes or so. When I woke up next, it was after 11.

I took an eight-hour nap. I just slept and slept. Why my body needed an eight-hour nap, I'll never know. Again, I wasn't particularly fatigued or stressed, and despite the back-to-work schedule I've been keeping this week, with the exception of Monday night, I've been sleeping well. Normally. Without the use of sleeping pills or melatonin.

I got up, talked with Daisy on Skype for a while, and then made some baked potatoes and the last of my Boca burgers for "dinner" before I went back to bed again and got up around 11 this morning. Strange.

Physically, I feel okay. My allergies are indeed bothering me, as they usually do when it gets really, really cold and I have to run the furnace -- which does nothing but circulate dust-filled, dry air through the house, but I mean, I'm all right. I'm not ill, or anything. My sinus infection may be coming back, but I'm not ill.

This weekend will be spent taking care of little tasks one by one. I need to mail out the rent check for February, I need to pay my Discover bill, which came in the mail a few days ago, and I need to do some minor grading/lesson planning stuff for next week. The first week of classes during any given semester is little more than a meet-and-greet; it's the second week where we, as instructors, actually begin to dive into the classes themselves and begin teaching in earnest. With next week comes the introduction of the first assignments for all three of my classes, as well as teaching lessons out of the books and workbooks and finalization of my rosters for my classes. I've had several students add my 011 class (the one we were locked out of) this week, bringing my total number of students in there up to 18 (with a max of 20). None of them know what's going on with that class, as they were not on my roster and not there for Tuesday night's debacle. I'll have to send out another announcement/email this weekend giving them the recap and telling them to read through the previous announcements on Blackboard. I also gained another student in my 102 class as well, bringing the total in there up to 12. My 210 is still holding strong at 8. Usually, most classes will have lower numbers in the spring semester, not vice versa.

As an aside, Blackboard updated all of its software/systems over the winter break, unveiling their new layout at the beginning of the new year. Apparently a lot of the instructors at the university who use it are having major problems with it working correctly. I haven't had any problems with it yet; all the stuff I do with it (grading, SafeAssignment, uploading handouts, announcements, etc) is all in the same place, and I haven't seen any issues on my end with it. However, up until 2011 or so, it didn't like Linux at all -- it would erase my grades when I tried to enter them, it would time out when I tried to upload the PDFs of my students' handouts, etc. Since the first major upgrade back then, I haven't had any problems with it. Maybe I'm just lucky, I don't know.

Unfortunately, as I do my work this weekend, I won't be able to have football on in the background, as all of that's done now until the Super Bowl next weekend. I mean, I guess the Pro Bowl is on, but really, who cares about the Pro Bowl? It doesn't count for anything and they're not real teams. Bah. I guess I'll charge up my music player and listen to that while I'm doing my "professor work."

It is warmer today...about 40 degrees warmer than it was yesterday morning, actually. It's supposed to get up to around 60 over the weekend before the temperature once more drops like a stone for next week when I have to go back out and teach again. I told my mother this morning that I'm pretty sure Kansas weather does that to spite me just because I have to leave the house. I haven't been outside today, as I'm sitting here wearing tie-dye longjohns and the same shirt/hoodie that I've worn since Wednesday night, so eh. I have to do laundry this weekend, so there's no reason to change my clothes until I do that, lest I just add more to the pile in the bottom of my hamper after it's already been emptied.

Daisy and my mother have been talking back and forth via email; Daisy sent her pictures of her wedding dress and the like, and she's trying to help coordinate their travel for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. I think it's very sweet, as well as very comforting that they're establishing a rapport with one another. My parents have never met Daisy in person; they've talked back and forth with her on Skype when I was visiting home over Christmas in 2012, but that's about it. They won't get to actually meet her until they come in for the wedding. Apparently our mothers are going to be talking back and forth in much the same manner as well, in order to welcome my parents to the midwest for the event and to put any issues that may pop up at ease. While I've told my parents that it would probably be much easier/cheaper (and definitely much faster) to fly out here from West Virginia instead of drive, the last I heard, they still insist on driving to make the trip. I find this at least somewhat amusing (but mostly puzzling) as I fly back and forth when I visit back home.

Nothing else is going on, really. I expect a quiet, mostly restful weekend. I don't get paid for the first time this semester until a week from today, and it will be Wednesday before I even know how much that check will be (that's when they put the electronic pay stub online).

"Your paychecks are going to be a little less this semester because you're not on that late payroll timeframe," Daisy told me last night. "You should be on the same schedule as everyone else, and will get an 'extra' check at the end of the semester."

"I know," I said. "They're different every semester anyhow; they always have been regardless of whether anything changes with my job/taxes or not."

When I was a GTA, my paycheck amounts would fluctuate between semesters by close to $100 -- it's all about how they schedule everything and equally divide it up. Some semesters I'd get paid over $400 per check, others I'd get much less. It's all based on the first and last pay dates. If the semester's pay periods are shorter, the checks are bigger. If they're longer, the checks are smaller. Regardless, it's out of my hands. Most of my first check -- however much it is -- will go directly towards paying off bills and credit cards anyway. I won't have a cushion of money of any sort until at least Valentine's Day, when I can slowly begin rebuilding my bank account a little more every two weeks, and hopefully (with careful budgeting) I'll be able to have some extra savings I can work with in another month or two.