Fall semester: day seventeen
I guess I'm getting paid on Friday. I mean, I think. I don't know how much or what the behind-the-scenes workings are for it. I mean, I do know -- the office administrator forwarded me an email about it this afternoon, which basically said that for all intents and purposes, it had been cleared and OK'd -- but I don't necessarily understand its details or how it's set up. I'll have to ask a few questions in the morning to figure out how it's all going to work since it's all very confusing to me. I mean, I'm a guy with two different English degrees who sucks at math and accounting, so...yeah.
I was able to get some sleep this afternoon, but very little; I napped for about three hours. I was hoping it would be a nap that would turn into a full night of sleep. Not that I didn't rest last night, but just because it was hot and stuffy (in the mid-90s outside again today) and I don't really have a lot to do for my class tomorrow; I'm covering a bit of a chapter in the textbook and I'm going over a handout, and they get their first reading/journal assignment from their other text for the class, the "reader." Then I get to come home and go to bed again if I so choose. I don't know when I'll go back to sleep tonight; all I know is that I can't just stay up all night or I won't be able to function that well tomorrow on three hours' sleep obtained in the late afternoon/early evening hours tonight.
I didn't talk much about the computer setup I have in my office at work now -- I took my old laptop back in, the Dell that I put new RAM in over the summer. I did this because A) why put new RAM in it if I'm not going to use it, and B) because the laptop Daisy got me is a somewhat faster, more powerful machine that I'll need here at home in case my desktop dies on me at some point -- which, as it's almost four years old, is inevitable eventually. I also take the one Daisy got me on trips up to Omaha since it works really well on her parents' wifi network, and if I'd taken it in, any time I leave town I'd have to disconnect from everything and take that laptop home. That just creates another pain in the ass to deal with, and something else to carry the 1/2 mile to and from my car since the parking situation on campus sucks now.
I've set up the old laptop in the office, but apparently the wired connection in my office either doesn't work, or the cable is old and burnt-out, or something, because my laptop doesn't recognize it when it's plugged in. I have to connect to the guest wifi network at the university (because for some reason, even with my university ID and password, it won't let me log on to the secure network), which is incredibly slow and with the old-ass wireless card in that Dell, rather spotty and unreliable. I had to get 302MB of updates and upgrades to that computer, for example, and it took over three hours on Monday morning to get what appeared to be only about half of them -- when I left to go teach, I just said fuck it and left it on and running. The screen turns off after an hour of inactivity anyway, or at least it's supposed to. Unless I wanted to walk an extra mile in the blazing heat on Monday -- back up to the office and then from there down to my car again -- I wasn't concerned about leaving it on. It'll still be on and in sleep mode when I get in there tomorrow morning, and I'll switch out the cables to see if that makes the wired internet work. I can't access the office printer through the wireless, which would mean that if I needed to print something, I'd actually have to bring my heavy-ass, bulky laser printer back to campus as well. When I'm only in there for a few hours in the morning two days a week, that's basically pointless and a waste of time and energy.
The coffee pot works okay enough, though.
Today on West campus, I went over about four or five different handouts with my students and then let them go. Their workshop copies come in on Thursday, and thus there's nothing really more I can teach them for the narrative essay unit. They know what to do, they know what I'm looking for, and they have their topics set and ready; they'll either do it well or they won't, and there's not a whole lot I can do to hold their hands in the process, not that I would anyway. I'll see what they can produce, at least half of them, anyway, when those workshop copies come in.
That class seems to be opening up a bit more, or at least they're loosening up a bit and realizing I'm not the boogeyman. I got a few students to speak up today and interact in class a bit more, students who hadn't said anything in class discussion yet for the entirety of the semester until now. My classes always seem to be a bit squirrelly until after the first workshop session occurs anyway, and then they loosen up and feel more comfortable with themselves and with me as their instructor. I've seen it for years at this point. My 011 students, for the most part, are different -- aside from two or three students in that class, it's like pulling teeth to get them to interact in classroom discussion or to have them share their work from their journal assignments. Perhaps that's because it's a remedial English class and they're all ashamed they're in it, perhaps they're bored because the lesson plan requires me to cover really, really basic stuff (for example, tomorrow I'm covering the parts of speech, with special focus on coordination between sentences and coordinating conjunctions), but I really don't necessarily think that's an excuse. Being a student is like having a job; if your boss tells you to do something, you do it. Similarly, if your professor tells you that you need to participate in class discussion in order to be able to pass, you do it or you don't pass. I'm not a tough instructor; I'm laid back and pretty easy-going, but if necessary I can and will be a total hardass and put these kids through English boot camp. I have no qualms about doing that -- it taps into my primal urges of being the one who makes the rules and is in charge at all times. I can be a good cop, or I can be the bad cop. I'd much rather be the good cop.
I've already had three or four students automatically fail 011 because they've never shown up to class. I'll have to send out that email tomorrow to notify them and urge them to drop the course, since they can no longer pass it (not that it's a credit-giving course anyhow). On Monday, I had seven out of the twenty students in that class just not show up, a first, and because of that it prompted me to ask my West campus students this morning -- most of whom have classes on the main campus as well -- if there was some sort of campus function happening yesterday that I was unaware of. Except for the students who have never shown up, I almost always have perfect attendance in my 011 class.
I have to treat the 011 class a bit differently than I would treat a standard composition course (such as the other ones I've taught for the past three years), and that's because it's a credit/non-credit, pass/fail course. It's a slightly different scenario than teaching a standard course. These kids are in this class because they must be, and they're forced to spend $150 on books (yeah, the texts are that expensive) for a course that doesn't even give them credit hours that counts toward a degree field or major of any sort. It's a course that, even with the cost of books, I believe that a lot of those students don't take seriously simply because of that fact. 011 is a proving ground, a training scenario, a scrimmage, for what they'll deal with in college. They're placed into it based on their ACT/SAT scores in English, and they can't get out of it until they've successfully passed it. Because of this, they can't progress into any sort of degree field or move up at all within the university system until they've passed it. It's a trap. Some of the students, based on their diagnostics, don't necessarily need it -- and some of them desperately need it but don't care. It is, more than any other course I've ever taught, the class that lets me see firsthand if someone is cut out for college. That may sound harsh to say, but it's really the truth. Some people just weren't meant to go to college, yet since Flat State University basically accepts anyone with three or four functioning brain cells (something like 90% of all applicants get in; I've read the stats), classes like this must exist. There's no more pressure on me to pass or fail these students for this class than there is for any other class, but I've noticed very quickly that this is more of a "hey, this is what writing in college is about, so if you can't do this, you may as well give up and go work fast food" sort of class than any other class I've ever taught. Again, it sounds harsh, but it's not. I know why the class is there and I see the purpose of it. It's just not necessarily pleasant to admit that, really, that's what it is. That's why some students see it as a complete joke of a class, and why others are completely overwhelmed by it. Not everyone is cut out for college.
Yet, obviously, there are still rules and regulations I must follow for it -- if you miss a certain number of days, you fail automatically. Sorry, department policy. If you fail a paper and can't raise your grade with a rewrite, sorry, that's on you. I make every class I teach as simple and enjoyable as possible and give my students every chance to succeed, sometimes even to my own detriment or to the squandering of any free time I would have otherwise. Yes, I want my students to enjoy my classes and feel at ease in them, but I also want them to learn something, and I want them to prove to me that they've learned something in their work.
Again, I go back to what one of my friends and fellow adjuncts told me when classes were just starting up: you're an adjunct now; you can teach the class however you want, and structure it however you want.
Yeah, I know this. But I am a rather by-the-book sort of person. Yes, I've designed and redesigned classes before, sometimes from scratch, but there is only so much I can pull out of my ass and give these kids the same sort of coursework and assignments they'd need to succeed. For the 011s I have to keep a delicate balance of not too simple for the smarter folks, and not too complex for the ones who need more simplified instruction. It is a very fine line, and having never taught this class before, I'm flying blind and solo week-to-week, depending on lesson plans from the Director's wife to be able to structure paper assignments and in-class activities. The lesson plan schedules can say "Illustration Essay" or "Definition Essay" all they want, but I have no clue what that means without seeing an example or an actual assignment sheet with the requirements for it. The other, more advanced composition classes I've taught don't teach essays like that. An "argumentative research paper" is pretty self-explanatory. "Illustration Essay" is not. I want to be able to plot all of that stuff ahead of time so I can know what I'm asking of these students, but that's greatly hindered by the fact that I don't have those assignments in front of me to look at, and that I've never taught the class before. Common sense and looking at the reading assignments in advance only gets me so far, like a puzzle with missing pieces.
I've titled this post "Big Rumblings" because there are a lot of those things going on around the department and on campus right now. On Thursday, famous poet Gregory Orr -- who, if you're a fan of poetry, you have heard of and read before almost without a doubt -- is doing a reading on campus. In a little over a month from now, a much, much more famous writer is coming to campus for a reading. I can't divulge who it is, because the department as well as the university as a whole is keeping it pretty under-the-radar (more than likely so that said writer won't get mobbed) but I can mention that said writer will be here and will be doing a reading because it's listed on the writer's tour schedule on their website. Most of the department knows about it, but has been keeping it very tight-lipped and quiet for good reason. It will get out eventually, I would imagine, over the course of the next few weeks -- but I'm not saying anything about it here.
The other thing that's been rumbling as of late is my car, unfortunately. This morning on my trip to and from West campus, I noticed that the wheel bearing was a little louder than it was before, there's a weird squeaking that the car exhibited in the past (but stopped doing a long time ago) that's back again, and it isn't a belt, and it felt like the transmission was slipping a few times. I could be imagining the latter, of course, but who knows. The car is really old and wearing out; it finally crossed 228,000 miles this morning on my way to campus. The coolant sensor has apparently gone out completely, as the "low coolant" light is now on no matter what, no matter how much coolant it has in it (believe me, it's full). On the plus side, it doesn't appear to be leaking or dropping any more oil or coolant in the parking lot(s) or driveway anymore, since really the only time it's driven is on the highway to and from school. Unless it's burning them off somehow, it's not losing any fluids.
At this point, with how poor I am, I'm basically doing what the auto shop guy told me to do with the car, which was "just drive it until it dies." Unless there's a major problem with it, such as a tire blowing out or a belt breaking again, I can't afford to get anything else done to it -- all I can do is keep the fluids and oil filled at the proper levels and run some fuel system cleaner or Marvel Mystery Oil through it every few weeks. I love the car, but as much as I'm driving it now -- it was a 56-mile round-trip today alone, just to teach -- it will not last forever. It just won't. I would not be surprised if I'm driving another car, in better or worse shape, by the time I get married next summer, and would not be surprised if I have to start frantically searching Craigslist for another vehicle in a few months, if not sooner. The gas I put into the car this morning is more than it's worth for a trade-in value with how old it is and with its miles and cosmetic issues.
As you may recall, my motto last year was "hey, car, please just last until I graduate." Now it's "hey, car, please just last until I have a job with a salary I'm comfortable with." It worked for the former, but I'm fairly certain it won't work for the latter. If I could afford a car payment every month I would've already bought something newer, something that I wouldn't have to worry would strand me at home or at one of the two campuses I must drive to on alternating days. But, I can't afford that, as I am the lowest-of-the-low-paid adjunct faculty at a relatively small state school.
Despite this, the car is a tank -- I drove that fucker home with no serpentine belt, no belt tensioner, no power steering, and the engine overheating and smoking for twelve miles on the interstate, at 40mph (the fastest I could get it to go in order to get home before it died completely), and it didn't kill it. There was no other way to get it back to the house at 11PM on a weeknight. So, yes. Tank. If I were a religious man (I'm not) I would be saying a blessing over that car every day just for taking me to work and back again with few, if any, issues about it.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) is supposed to be the last scorchingly hot day for a while -- according to the Weather Channel, the heat wave will break tomorrow evening, and with it will come showers and thunderstorms. Finally. The high for Thursday is supposed to be 80, and the high on Friday a scant 78. For the next ten days, it's not supposed to get out of the 80s, and we're supposed to have a chance of rain/storms almost every day. This is a very, very welcome change. I desperately want it to start feeling like fall soon; I told Daisy earlier tonight that it was 92 upstairs in my house, and still 84 downstairs. As of 10PM, this was still accurate, even with the AC running. I finally shut it down a little while ago, and I'm looking forward to the coming week to where I shouldn't have to run it at all.
As my week reaches its midpoint, I am once more awake now (as mentioned before) battling insomnia and an inability to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Daisy says I should read a book or attend a seminar on sleep to see if I can figure out what's wrong with me, as there are "other options besides pills."
"Not for me there aren't," I said. "My insomnia is getting worse and worse by the year. No book or seminar is going to fix that. They'll tell me things like 'make sure you get eight hours of sleep per night' or 'don't drink coffee or smoke four hours before you need to sleep' or 'eat X meals at X times every day,' and none of those things work for me because I don't and can't work on that sort of schedule."
I'm not a 9-to-5 wage slave working the same hours at the same job five days a week; if I were, not only would I want to slit my wrists due to the monotony, but I more than likely wouldn't have sleeping issues in the first place, since my body and brain would desperately want to sleep away the depression of working in such a soul-sucking, corporate-esque position like that. I have a very strange, unorthodox working schedule where I have to be awake quite early every morning and am usually done by noon (or shortly thereafter) every day. Coincidentally, those are also the hours that I get the best sleep -- late nights/early mornings through early afternoons -- so I'm completely thrown off. I've always been a night owl and it's in my body chemistry and metabolism to be one ever since I was in middle school -- to throw a schedule at me that runs counter to everything my body and mind has ever known since I was a child throws me into a low-level shock, a stressful chaos. Not needing to stay on campus for hours on end just because of parking and classes I'm taking also throws me off, as after a while my body did get used to that in graduate school. It's awesome to be able to return home and pull into my driveway for the day at, say, 11:30 or 12 on most days, but with it comes the vast emptiness of time I'm awake when I'm not tired enough to sleep, because my body wants to be waking up at those times.
Obviously I don't eat on a preset schedule either; I eat when I'm hungry, and when I'm not, I don't. Yesterday I had two different meals before I went to bed last night, and today, I ate this afternoon and then had to pass out for three hours. I made a baked potato when I got up tonight, as I was hungry again, but did not feel the need to go immediately back to bed. My entire metabolism, my sleep schedules, my need for rest at different times -- none of it is any longer on any sort of set pattern, and it's just getting worse and worse for my insomnia. At this point the only thing that I can depend on to ensure that I sleep when I can and when I need to are sleep meds, and I so very rarely use them (maybe three times a year, when I just can't turn off my brain enough to rest). I have a desperate, irrational fear of becoming addicted to them, and therefore never use them unless absolutely necessary. And, as mentioned before, I can almost never use them when I really need to anyhow -- right now, for example, I wish I could go back to bed and sleep for twelve hours. Twelve hours from now, I will have already gone to campus, taught my class for the day, and will have returned home. I have to leave the house in six hours. Because of my oddball schedule I can never get the rest I need to be able to get when I need to get it, and if I try -- such as I did this evening -- my body tells me no! and wakes me up three hours later. If I do somehow get a good long amount of sleep after class one day, falling asleep between 2-to-4PM or so, I'll still wake up at midnight or 1 at the latest, and then by the time I have to go back in to teach again in the morning, I'm dreadfully tired again because I've been awake so long that my "day," my "useful awake hours," have passed. It's a brutal, never-ending cycle of sleep-deprived foggy misery.
On that note, I do have to continue the rest of my week in the morning (whether I want to or not) and find out what my paycheck thing means, so as much as I really don't want to, because it'll make me feel worse, I need to shower and at least attempt to go back to sleep for a scant few hours. If I can't sleep, I can't sleep, but I won't be able to say I didn't try to.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Pees and Queues, Part II
Fall semester: day seventeen
Days off seem to evaporate into thin air very quickly, and even with a constant three-day weekend, I can never seem to have enough time to rest and recuperate after a week where I've been constantly on-the-go. I'm still not sleeping that well; while I was able to get some decent rest over the weekend, and last night as well, I am always feeling tired or lagged-out. It's a miracle that yesterday I was able to make it to almost 10:30 PM -- after eating, even, twice -- before I felt the need to crash out.
Yesterday morning, I finally took my laptop, coffee, and Powerbars back to the office. My office feels like an actual office again, or at least as close as it's probably going to feel to one. No, it's not my old office. It's never going to be my old office, comfortable and worn with the walls plastered in posters and cartoons. But it's an office, and it's an office which will do for now. After giving my old coffee pot to a friend, I procured an abandoned one last week from the student lounge (I say "abandoned" because it's been in there for all going-on-four-years now that I've been at the university, and had 1/4 inch of dust on it from sitting in the same place), and thus prevented the need to bring in my old spare pot from home. If nobody else is going to use it, I will. You snooze, you lose, new GTAs. Once I get a power system of some sort for the speakers I have (or, barring that, bring in a small radio with an aux input), I'll be able to listen to my iPod in there as well, and will actually feel normal and at home again in an office. I may not even bother; I'm only in there for a few hours in the morning twice a week.
My payroll status, however, is still up in the air. I filled out all the necessary forms and procedural stuff for the background check (which is now conducted online), and when I finished it last Wednesday night, I sent it off to the university. By Thursday afternoon, I had a full copy of it in my email. Whatever company the university does background check forms through is unique in that they send me a copy of the complete report as well. I've never seen that before. Obviously, there's nothing on there -- I told the Director and the office administrator this morning that it "gave me the opportunity to read through everything I haven't done" -- but I found it to be really neat; it had my last seven years of addresses and clean criminal checks from three states, and gave a breakdown of everything I'd been scanned for and all of the nothing that came up. Since it was finished so quickly, it's in the university's hands now, and my payroll has been redone to include it.
Here's the thing, however -- apparently, in order to get me paid on schedule (which would be on Friday) the department has to file some sort of petition to get me back on the original schedule, since it kicked back the original info because the background check wasn't on file. Now that it is, yes, I can begin receiving paychecks...except since because it wasn't on file before, I wasn't listed on the payroll for this coming Friday because that info was kicked back. Now that everything is in the system and ready-to-go, in order for me to get paid before the 27th they have to do some sort of audit to get me put on there again for this week -- normally something that is either impossible or is never approved by the payroll department anyhow -- but they're trying to push it through because none of this was my fault, and I sort of got dicked over by the system ("red tape," as the Director called it this morning). This isn't something the department has to do by any means; I'd still get paid on the 27th as my first check regardless if they couldn't push it through, but they're trying to do so as a favor to me for making me wait even this long, and since it's such a unique case where I didn't do anything wrong, they're trying to take care of it and fix it. That doesn't mean it will actually happen, but apparently it's now in the hands of what the payroll department decides to do.
As mentioned before, I'm not going to run out of money if I have to wait three more weeks total to get paid instead of three more days; that's not a problem. Yeah, I'll have to budget a little more over those three weeks, and will have to do my grocery shopping and paying of bills a little more carefully on a more precisely-timed schedule than the usual, but I'm not going to go broke or anything like that. Even if I run low and end up getting paid on the 27th as my first check, there's still four more days there in the interim afterwards that I would have to get the rent to the landlord, for example, and mail in this town only takes a day. So no, I'm not really worried about money right now. I've survived for much longer on much less. I will say, however, that what the department is trying to do to hurry it along is exceedingly nice of them -- and I personally, quietly thanked the office administrator in private this morning for all that she does, especially all she's done with my stuff over the course of the past two weeks or so, since I know she doesn't hear it enough.
In the meantime, I've paid the bills I have, paying off over $112 of my $212 credit card bill (so that I can free up some space on there for gas) and have taken care of everything else that's come in. So much of everything these days is a waiting game, as I've mentioned here before -- I'm either waiting for something to happen, waiting to get paid, waiting for enough time to pass before I can do some sort of task myself, etc. Everything in my life exists in carefully-metered time, time that can't really be altered that much.
Daisy told me last night that sometime in the next few weeks she wants to come back down for another visit, and I honestly told her that I don't know how or when that would be possible at this juncture. This is because this weekend I will have a set of student workshop copies to work on, the following week I'll be workshopping in class, the next class day after that I'll collect all of those papers, and then the very next day I'll be collecting the papers from my other class. I'll grade all of those, then I'll collect journals. By the time I grade the journals, it's midterm and I'll have to calculate midterm grades, and then my third class, the Business Writing class, starts a month from today, and I'm stuck on West campus (or at least in the immediate surrounding area) for thirteen hours per day twice a week from then until early December. Of course, in the interim I also have to be rewriting and reworking an old syllabus and weekly lesson plan for that class, and have to start once more searching and applying for other teaching jobs which would start in the spring in order to better secure financial stability for the foreseeable future. Oh, and lest we not forget that my first student loan payment is due in late November, and I'll have to spend another $300 to renew my car insurance again in December and AHHHHHH!
See what I mean, folks? It's harder to plan things out than it looks.
"I'd like to be able to come down again before you start teaching that other class," Daisy said. "I can do it anytime as long as you give me some advance notice."
She asked me to look at my schedule(s) and see if I could plot the best time to do it and then tell her when, basically. I'm okay with that, but doing that is a lot harder than it looks when student work begins to ramp up and start pouring in. The easiest time (theoretically) would be the 24th through the 27th, as that's the week I'm collecting my first papers, but that's only "easy" if I get paid this week. I spend a lot of money when Daisy's here, whether I plan to or not -- I fill her gas tank at least once, I have to get vegan food for our meals, we go out to a movie, etc -- and if I don't get paid until the 27th, I really don't have the funds for any of that extraneous stuff between now and then. I'm not going to tell Daisy "hey, sure, come down when you want, but you have to pay for everything we eat/do." Mainly because I'm not an asshole.
As for my own life I feel rather scatterbrained right now -- for example, after spending twenty minutes yesterday morning on the main campus making copies of everything I would need for my class today, I (of course) had a brain fart and left all of them there on my desk in my office instead of stuffing them into my bag to take with me back home and to class today. This means that while gathering my things this morning to prep for class (since I'm also scatterbrained enough to not even think about doing that before I went to bed last night) I realized that I had three different handouts that I was going over today, and without them, I have no lesson whatsoever. This means that I had to print out close to fifty pages on my own printer, stapling some of these pages myself, in order to actually be able to teach this morning. Obviously, I'm not normally this frazzled. Last week when I went to teach on West campus, I forgot my cigarettes and lighter at home, which (as you could probably guess) did not make me that happy. This morning, because it was so hot yesterday and I was sweaty, I had to leap into the shower for a five-minute scrubdown in order to make myself look and feel somewhat presentable, and I still feel restless, frazzled, and ill-prepared for class. I'm a third of the way through the semester, folks. I should've hit my stride by this point and I shouldn't feel so scattered all the time. It's not even a sleep issue for the most part, but a "holy shit, I have to get up and do this every day whether I want to or not" issue. Again, I love my job, I love teaching, but it's not like a teacher's job ever truly stops until those final grades are entered and the semester ends. That's why it's so difficult to schedule time for visits with Daisy -- I always have to meter my time and keep constantly thinking a week or two in advance, and that's really hard for me to do. I've always been a "take it day by day" sort of person. Teaching twice a week, when I was a GTA, was a lot more manageable, at least mentally. I taught two classes twice a week and they were the same classes with the same lesson plans, on the same campus, and when I was done, I did the necessary work for them and had a breather before I had to do it again. Now, with two different courses on alternating days and with a third one starting in a month, I'm dreadfully out-of-sync and feel like there's always something else to do, something constantly hanging over my head, and I can't get into a "groove," so to speak, because my schedule alternates back and forth, back and forth, from one campus to the other and back again.
On that note, I need to go; I must put gas in the car before my drive to West campus this morning (part of why I paid off a large chunk of my credit card bill, as mentioned above). My week isn't even half over yet.
Days off seem to evaporate into thin air very quickly, and even with a constant three-day weekend, I can never seem to have enough time to rest and recuperate after a week where I've been constantly on-the-go. I'm still not sleeping that well; while I was able to get some decent rest over the weekend, and last night as well, I am always feeling tired or lagged-out. It's a miracle that yesterday I was able to make it to almost 10:30 PM -- after eating, even, twice -- before I felt the need to crash out.
Yesterday morning, I finally took my laptop, coffee, and Powerbars back to the office. My office feels like an actual office again, or at least as close as it's probably going to feel to one. No, it's not my old office. It's never going to be my old office, comfortable and worn with the walls plastered in posters and cartoons. But it's an office, and it's an office which will do for now. After giving my old coffee pot to a friend, I procured an abandoned one last week from the student lounge (I say "abandoned" because it's been in there for all going-on-four-years now that I've been at the university, and had 1/4 inch of dust on it from sitting in the same place), and thus prevented the need to bring in my old spare pot from home. If nobody else is going to use it, I will. You snooze, you lose, new GTAs. Once I get a power system of some sort for the speakers I have (or, barring that, bring in a small radio with an aux input), I'll be able to listen to my iPod in there as well, and will actually feel normal and at home again in an office. I may not even bother; I'm only in there for a few hours in the morning twice a week.
My payroll status, however, is still up in the air. I filled out all the necessary forms and procedural stuff for the background check (which is now conducted online), and when I finished it last Wednesday night, I sent it off to the university. By Thursday afternoon, I had a full copy of it in my email. Whatever company the university does background check forms through is unique in that they send me a copy of the complete report as well. I've never seen that before. Obviously, there's nothing on there -- I told the Director and the office administrator this morning that it "gave me the opportunity to read through everything I haven't done" -- but I found it to be really neat; it had my last seven years of addresses and clean criminal checks from three states, and gave a breakdown of everything I'd been scanned for and all of the nothing that came up. Since it was finished so quickly, it's in the university's hands now, and my payroll has been redone to include it.
Here's the thing, however -- apparently, in order to get me paid on schedule (which would be on Friday) the department has to file some sort of petition to get me back on the original schedule, since it kicked back the original info because the background check wasn't on file. Now that it is, yes, I can begin receiving paychecks...except since because it wasn't on file before, I wasn't listed on the payroll for this coming Friday because that info was kicked back. Now that everything is in the system and ready-to-go, in order for me to get paid before the 27th they have to do some sort of audit to get me put on there again for this week -- normally something that is either impossible or is never approved by the payroll department anyhow -- but they're trying to push it through because none of this was my fault, and I sort of got dicked over by the system ("red tape," as the Director called it this morning). This isn't something the department has to do by any means; I'd still get paid on the 27th as my first check regardless if they couldn't push it through, but they're trying to do so as a favor to me for making me wait even this long, and since it's such a unique case where I didn't do anything wrong, they're trying to take care of it and fix it. That doesn't mean it will actually happen, but apparently it's now in the hands of what the payroll department decides to do.
As mentioned before, I'm not going to run out of money if I have to wait three more weeks total to get paid instead of three more days; that's not a problem. Yeah, I'll have to budget a little more over those three weeks, and will have to do my grocery shopping and paying of bills a little more carefully on a more precisely-timed schedule than the usual, but I'm not going to go broke or anything like that. Even if I run low and end up getting paid on the 27th as my first check, there's still four more days there in the interim afterwards that I would have to get the rent to the landlord, for example, and mail in this town only takes a day. So no, I'm not really worried about money right now. I've survived for much longer on much less. I will say, however, that what the department is trying to do to hurry it along is exceedingly nice of them -- and I personally, quietly thanked the office administrator in private this morning for all that she does, especially all she's done with my stuff over the course of the past two weeks or so, since I know she doesn't hear it enough.
In the meantime, I've paid the bills I have, paying off over $112 of my $212 credit card bill (so that I can free up some space on there for gas) and have taken care of everything else that's come in. So much of everything these days is a waiting game, as I've mentioned here before -- I'm either waiting for something to happen, waiting to get paid, waiting for enough time to pass before I can do some sort of task myself, etc. Everything in my life exists in carefully-metered time, time that can't really be altered that much.
Daisy told me last night that sometime in the next few weeks she wants to come back down for another visit, and I honestly told her that I don't know how or when that would be possible at this juncture. This is because this weekend I will have a set of student workshop copies to work on, the following week I'll be workshopping in class, the next class day after that I'll collect all of those papers, and then the very next day I'll be collecting the papers from my other class. I'll grade all of those, then I'll collect journals. By the time I grade the journals, it's midterm and I'll have to calculate midterm grades, and then my third class, the Business Writing class, starts a month from today, and I'm stuck on West campus (or at least in the immediate surrounding area) for thirteen hours per day twice a week from then until early December. Of course, in the interim I also have to be rewriting and reworking an old syllabus and weekly lesson plan for that class, and have to start once more searching and applying for other teaching jobs which would start in the spring in order to better secure financial stability for the foreseeable future. Oh, and lest we not forget that my first student loan payment is due in late November, and I'll have to spend another $300 to renew my car insurance again in December and AHHHHHH!
See what I mean, folks? It's harder to plan things out than it looks.
"I'd like to be able to come down again before you start teaching that other class," Daisy said. "I can do it anytime as long as you give me some advance notice."
She asked me to look at my schedule(s) and see if I could plot the best time to do it and then tell her when, basically. I'm okay with that, but doing that is a lot harder than it looks when student work begins to ramp up and start pouring in. The easiest time (theoretically) would be the 24th through the 27th, as that's the week I'm collecting my first papers, but that's only "easy" if I get paid this week. I spend a lot of money when Daisy's here, whether I plan to or not -- I fill her gas tank at least once, I have to get vegan food for our meals, we go out to a movie, etc -- and if I don't get paid until the 27th, I really don't have the funds for any of that extraneous stuff between now and then. I'm not going to tell Daisy "hey, sure, come down when you want, but you have to pay for everything we eat/do." Mainly because I'm not an asshole.
As for my own life I feel rather scatterbrained right now -- for example, after spending twenty minutes yesterday morning on the main campus making copies of everything I would need for my class today, I (of course) had a brain fart and left all of them there on my desk in my office instead of stuffing them into my bag to take with me back home and to class today. This means that while gathering my things this morning to prep for class (since I'm also scatterbrained enough to not even think about doing that before I went to bed last night) I realized that I had three different handouts that I was going over today, and without them, I have no lesson whatsoever. This means that I had to print out close to fifty pages on my own printer, stapling some of these pages myself, in order to actually be able to teach this morning. Obviously, I'm not normally this frazzled. Last week when I went to teach on West campus, I forgot my cigarettes and lighter at home, which (as you could probably guess) did not make me that happy. This morning, because it was so hot yesterday and I was sweaty, I had to leap into the shower for a five-minute scrubdown in order to make myself look and feel somewhat presentable, and I still feel restless, frazzled, and ill-prepared for class. I'm a third of the way through the semester, folks. I should've hit my stride by this point and I shouldn't feel so scattered all the time. It's not even a sleep issue for the most part, but a "holy shit, I have to get up and do this every day whether I want to or not" issue. Again, I love my job, I love teaching, but it's not like a teacher's job ever truly stops until those final grades are entered and the semester ends. That's why it's so difficult to schedule time for visits with Daisy -- I always have to meter my time and keep constantly thinking a week or two in advance, and that's really hard for me to do. I've always been a "take it day by day" sort of person. Teaching twice a week, when I was a GTA, was a lot more manageable, at least mentally. I taught two classes twice a week and they were the same classes with the same lesson plans, on the same campus, and when I was done, I did the necessary work for them and had a breather before I had to do it again. Now, with two different courses on alternating days and with a third one starting in a month, I'm dreadfully out-of-sync and feel like there's always something else to do, something constantly hanging over my head, and I can't get into a "groove," so to speak, because my schedule alternates back and forth, back and forth, from one campus to the other and back again.
On that note, I need to go; I must put gas in the car before my drive to West campus this morning (part of why I paid off a large chunk of my credit card bill, as mentioned above). My week isn't even half over yet.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Pees and Queues
Fall semester: day thirteen
So much of the past two days has been a blur.
Before I went to teach my class yesterday on West campus, I was so tired that I had to slug down a good six or seven cups of coffee to actually wake up. I'd set my alarm for 5, even though I didn't need to. I do this because, even though I don't have to leave before 8:10 or so on Tuesdays/Thursdays, it's a pain in the ass to reset my alarm clock every other day. For those of you who don't know, I have an alarm clock radio that's not a typical clock; it's voice activated. To set the time, you hit a button and talk to it. And if you don't enunciate enough or speak quickly/slowly enough, it will require you to do it over and over again, because it will interpret you as speaking a different time than what you said. Not only that, but when I'm exhausted, it's not like I'm going to remember to change the alarm time every single night because I teach at different times on alternating days.
So, regardless of whether I have to get up at 5 or not, I just set the alarm, and on Tuesdays/Thursdays, I generally hit the snooze button about ten times before getting up. It's just easier, and allows me to wake up a bit more gradually. I've never been one of those "get up and go" people, and twitch internally when I hear somebody try to say something along the lines of how a snooze button is worthless because if you can hit the snooze multiple times, you can just set the alarm for the time you would actually get up anyway. It's not like that. People who say that are either those "get up and go" types or they're people who don't have to worry about alarm clocks in the first place. There are many times that I need to wake up slowly, and be awakened multiple times, before I can be conscious enough to get up. Unless I'm waking up from a horrific nightmare, I can't go from deep sleep to fully and completely awake in the span of a second. I also know that if I'm tired enough, no matter what the day holds in store for me, I will, subconsciously and without even knowing it, roll over and turn the alarm completely off sometimes. That's what happens when you're constantly sleep-deprived, yet for some reason your body and mind won't let you sleep for more than six hours most of the time.
Anyway, I came home from class yesterday, watched a movie while I ate lunch, and passed out around 5:30 or so. I slept well into the night. Every time I stirred awake, I told myself no, and forced myself to lay still until I would drift back off. It was a hard process, and I found myself repeating it numerous times throughout the evening and some of the overnight hours. No, Brandon, I told myself, you WILL sleep. You will not get up, you will not go work on things that you don't have to do for weeks, you will not go eat or begin drinking coffee again, wearing yourself out more. You will fucking lay here, and you will fucking sleep.
I shouldn't have to reason with myself, or do "tough love" like this in order to get any real rest. My brain refuses to cooperate with my body most of the time; I can be incredibly physically tired to the point where all of my muscles and joints ache and are having trouble holding me up, and yet I can still go downstairs and lay there staring at the ceiling because my brain will not just turn off and go into sleep mode.
"You need to learn how to meditate," Daisy told me a few days ago, as she's a big proponent of meditation.
"No, I need to medicate," I replied her. "I more than likely need some sort of sleep meds, something that will turn my brain off for me and knock me out so that I actually get the rest I need, because I am incapable of doing it on my own most of the time."
More likely than not, this is something psychological. It's not something physical, that's for damn sure -- my body is, as I mentioned before, feeling older and more creaky by the day. I don't tend to have any more stress right now than I've had in the past; in fact, my stress levels are greatly lessened compared to past semesters when I've had a ton of my own work to do in addition to student work, but over the past year or so, my insomnia has worsened to levels I've never seen before, where it's nothing for me to stay awake for 24-36 hours because I either have to or because I just can't sleep. I'm not drinking any more coffee or smoking any more cigarettes than I did before; in fact, I'm probably doing less of both, really. And, for the record, even though I work four days a week now, it's not like I haven't done that before within the university system, and for much longer stretches of time spent on campus over those four days.
Of course, the problem with needing medicine to help me sleep means that I would either have to get OTC stuff (which, frequently, doesn't really work for me) or get a prescription from a doctor. Hah, like I can ever afford to go to a doctor. I don't even know anything about that Obamacare health insurance stuff that's coming up, and that's supposed to kick in next month or something like that. The other problem is that no matter how much I may need it, I couldn't take any meds of this sort on the nights before the days I have to teach, unless I were planning to go to bed by 5PM every night and sleep until my alarm went off twelve hours later. I can't do that; I have too much shit I have to do on a daily basis; I just can't pass out and be dead to the world for 12 hours a day. So, really, I have no truly viable options.
When I couldn't sleep over the summer, I didn't notice it as much. Oh, you can't sleep? Okay, Brandon, well, when you need to sleep you can sleep as much as you want, because you don't have anything pressing to do. Feel free to sleep from 4AM to 3PM if that's what you need. Yeah, well, I can't do that anymore. I have a job. I'm a normal human with normal human responsibilities.
I stayed awake last night (as I could sleep no more), took a shower and got dressed, and went to teach my 011 class today on campus. I may have been exhausted, but I can put on a decent professional look and demeanor for a few hours if necessary most of the time, regardless of how much (or how little) sleep I've had beforehand. I filled out my background check form, and filled out the digital one online that the University emailed to me -- which is really what that paper form was for -- and submitted it all. Everything on my end has been done, so now I wait to hear when I'll get my first paycheck, whether that be on the 13th or the 27th, depending on how long it takes for that stuff to get processed. Regardless, I'll be fine money-wise until I get it.
When I came home this afternoon, it was hot -- the temperature had shot up thirty degrees or so from the time I'd left the house this morning. We're back in our "slowly rising heat wave" again, and while it's not 100-105 outside, it's still in the mid-90s for highs this week. Heat saps my energy more than anything else. I was in bed by 2:30 this afternoon.
So much of the past two days has been a blur.
Before I went to teach my class yesterday on West campus, I was so tired that I had to slug down a good six or seven cups of coffee to actually wake up. I'd set my alarm for 5, even though I didn't need to. I do this because, even though I don't have to leave before 8:10 or so on Tuesdays/Thursdays, it's a pain in the ass to reset my alarm clock every other day. For those of you who don't know, I have an alarm clock radio that's not a typical clock; it's voice activated. To set the time, you hit a button and talk to it. And if you don't enunciate enough or speak quickly/slowly enough, it will require you to do it over and over again, because it will interpret you as speaking a different time than what you said. Not only that, but when I'm exhausted, it's not like I'm going to remember to change the alarm time every single night because I teach at different times on alternating days.
So, regardless of whether I have to get up at 5 or not, I just set the alarm, and on Tuesdays/Thursdays, I generally hit the snooze button about ten times before getting up. It's just easier, and allows me to wake up a bit more gradually. I've never been one of those "get up and go" people, and twitch internally when I hear somebody try to say something along the lines of how a snooze button is worthless because if you can hit the snooze multiple times, you can just set the alarm for the time you would actually get up anyway. It's not like that. People who say that are either those "get up and go" types or they're people who don't have to worry about alarm clocks in the first place. There are many times that I need to wake up slowly, and be awakened multiple times, before I can be conscious enough to get up. Unless I'm waking up from a horrific nightmare, I can't go from deep sleep to fully and completely awake in the span of a second. I also know that if I'm tired enough, no matter what the day holds in store for me, I will, subconsciously and without even knowing it, roll over and turn the alarm completely off sometimes. That's what happens when you're constantly sleep-deprived, yet for some reason your body and mind won't let you sleep for more than six hours most of the time.
Anyway, I came home from class yesterday, watched a movie while I ate lunch, and passed out around 5:30 or so. I slept well into the night. Every time I stirred awake, I told myself no, and forced myself to lay still until I would drift back off. It was a hard process, and I found myself repeating it numerous times throughout the evening and some of the overnight hours. No, Brandon, I told myself, you WILL sleep. You will not get up, you will not go work on things that you don't have to do for weeks, you will not go eat or begin drinking coffee again, wearing yourself out more. You will fucking lay here, and you will fucking sleep.
I shouldn't have to reason with myself, or do "tough love" like this in order to get any real rest. My brain refuses to cooperate with my body most of the time; I can be incredibly physically tired to the point where all of my muscles and joints ache and are having trouble holding me up, and yet I can still go downstairs and lay there staring at the ceiling because my brain will not just turn off and go into sleep mode.
"You need to learn how to meditate," Daisy told me a few days ago, as she's a big proponent of meditation.
"No, I need to medicate," I replied her. "I more than likely need some sort of sleep meds, something that will turn my brain off for me and knock me out so that I actually get the rest I need, because I am incapable of doing it on my own most of the time."
More likely than not, this is something psychological. It's not something physical, that's for damn sure -- my body is, as I mentioned before, feeling older and more creaky by the day. I don't tend to have any more stress right now than I've had in the past; in fact, my stress levels are greatly lessened compared to past semesters when I've had a ton of my own work to do in addition to student work, but over the past year or so, my insomnia has worsened to levels I've never seen before, where it's nothing for me to stay awake for 24-36 hours because I either have to or because I just can't sleep. I'm not drinking any more coffee or smoking any more cigarettes than I did before; in fact, I'm probably doing less of both, really. And, for the record, even though I work four days a week now, it's not like I haven't done that before within the university system, and for much longer stretches of time spent on campus over those four days.
Of course, the problem with needing medicine to help me sleep means that I would either have to get OTC stuff (which, frequently, doesn't really work for me) or get a prescription from a doctor. Hah, like I can ever afford to go to a doctor. I don't even know anything about that Obamacare health insurance stuff that's coming up, and that's supposed to kick in next month or something like that. The other problem is that no matter how much I may need it, I couldn't take any meds of this sort on the nights before the days I have to teach, unless I were planning to go to bed by 5PM every night and sleep until my alarm went off twelve hours later. I can't do that; I have too much shit I have to do on a daily basis; I just can't pass out and be dead to the world for 12 hours a day. So, really, I have no truly viable options.
When I couldn't sleep over the summer, I didn't notice it as much. Oh, you can't sleep? Okay, Brandon, well, when you need to sleep you can sleep as much as you want, because you don't have anything pressing to do. Feel free to sleep from 4AM to 3PM if that's what you need. Yeah, well, I can't do that anymore. I have a job. I'm a normal human with normal human responsibilities.
I stayed awake last night (as I could sleep no more), took a shower and got dressed, and went to teach my 011 class today on campus. I may have been exhausted, but I can put on a decent professional look and demeanor for a few hours if necessary most of the time, regardless of how much (or how little) sleep I've had beforehand. I filled out my background check form, and filled out the digital one online that the University emailed to me -- which is really what that paper form was for -- and submitted it all. Everything on my end has been done, so now I wait to hear when I'll get my first paycheck, whether that be on the 13th or the 27th, depending on how long it takes for that stuff to get processed. Regardless, I'll be fine money-wise until I get it.
When I came home this afternoon, it was hot -- the temperature had shot up thirty degrees or so from the time I'd left the house this morning. We're back in our "slowly rising heat wave" again, and while it's not 100-105 outside, it's still in the mid-90s for highs this week. Heat saps my energy more than anything else. I was in bed by 2:30 this afternoon.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Getting Old
Fall semester: day eleven
Labor Day
I took a nap last night after Daisy got up and went to work; because of the holiday, she was working strange hours (only until midnight, and then she goes back in tonight at midnight, or something like that). I've still been recovering from my time in overdrive, so I've been trying to sleep as much as I can, since I need to. I may have a shorter week than usual, but by Thursday afternoon I'll still be tired and burnt-out again, if possibly to a slightly lesser degree than normal.
It has taken me the entire weekend to recover, I suppose, from being in overdrive for so long. I've not been particularly active -- I've had no real energy to be active, really -- and most of my free time has been spent decompressing and resting. I also think I may be getting slightly sick with a cold or something along those lines, though it could be my allergies and fatigue working in tandem.
My overall point is that when I woke up last night from my nap, the muscle pain was back.
"Babe. This really worries me," Daisy told me. "Take an asprin, at the least. And check your pulse."
"Honey, it's not a heart thing," I said. "Seriously. It's about how I sleep, with how I stretch out my arms and chest muscles because they're the only comfortable sleeping positions. It's muscular, not internal. I've somehow hyperextended a muscle or a tendon in there somewhere, as it's mainly in my upper left back and ribs/torso area, not in my organs or bones or anything like that."
Labor Day
I took a nap last night after Daisy got up and went to work; because of the holiday, she was working strange hours (only until midnight, and then she goes back in tonight at midnight, or something like that). I've still been recovering from my time in overdrive, so I've been trying to sleep as much as I can, since I need to. I may have a shorter week than usual, but by Thursday afternoon I'll still be tired and burnt-out again, if possibly to a slightly lesser degree than normal.
It has taken me the entire weekend to recover, I suppose, from being in overdrive for so long. I've not been particularly active -- I've had no real energy to be active, really -- and most of my free time has been spent decompressing and resting. I also think I may be getting slightly sick with a cold or something along those lines, though it could be my allergies and fatigue working in tandem.
My overall point is that when I woke up last night from my nap, the muscle pain was back.
"Babe. This really worries me," Daisy told me. "Take an asprin, at the least. And check your pulse."
"Honey, it's not a heart thing," I said. "Seriously. It's about how I sleep, with how I stretch out my arms and chest muscles because they're the only comfortable sleeping positions. It's muscular, not internal. I've somehow hyperextended a muscle or a tendon in there somewhere, as it's mainly in my upper left back and ribs/torso area, not in my organs or bones or anything like that."
To the best of my knowledge, this is true. It didn't/doesn't feel internal, and it's largely based on how I sleep. In order to sleep comfortably, I sleep in one of two positions a good 95% of the time -- and it's always at an angle, because I'm a big guy. Imagine it as a typographic slash, and this diagram I created should help:
It's really hard to explain, honestly, but try to picture it. I sleep at a constant angle because of my gut and because it's the only comfortable position for my back -- so a pillow (usually a thick one) is stuffed under my chest to balance out my body shape/provide support, and I stuff a smaller one between my neck and shoulder to give me head/neck support. This means that my armpit is parallel with, and on, the surface of the bed, and my arm is stretched out and up over my head, around the top/back of both pillows. My legs generally splay out. So, if you're picturing this correctly, you should be able to understand exactly how easy it is for me to hyper-extend and/or pull my arm/chest/shoulder muscles when I have to sleep this way in order to be comfortable most of the time. I usually sleep facing the wall, which means I'm laying on my left side -- the side of my body where I've pulled this muscle or muscle group.
After sleeping Friday night, I was fine on Saturday. It still ached a bit on Saturday morning, but went away. I figured that if I'd pulled or hyper-extended something, it went away or righted itself in my sleep, and the remaining soreness was simply from the light trauma in the first place.
Well, when I took my nap last night, it all came back -- the muscle aching and pain woke me up prematurely from said nap, and no position or movement stopped the ache until I physically got up. When I got up, it was as bad as it was on Friday morning (though, thankfully, the pain did not reach the levels that it did on Friday night). And, to make matters worse, the spasms had returned. Daisy, while on Skype with me after work, was able to see me physically twitch momentarily and suck in a quick breath every time I spasmed, which interrupted my speech. As it also happened when I breathed deeply -- meaning my chest muscles were part of it as well -- this was not fun when my continuing allergies/smoking made me cough. Don't even get me started on what happens when I sneeze. Fucking pollen.
I'm physically fine otherwise; I'm not achy anywhere else, and my allergies/allergy symptoms are at their normal levels for this time of year. I'm not lethargic or groggy, and all of my bodily processes seem to be functioning normally. This leads me to believe, through deductive reasoning, that I am not dying. Though, I will say that my bowels don't seem to be particularly happy with me after eating a lot of soy-based products when Daisy was here.
I told Daisy that I'd probably feel better after a nice, long shower, but that isn't a theory I've been able to test yet. Instead of taking a shower, I went to Walmart -- driving is a little tougher when your muscles hurt like hell -- to get the stuff I needed, came home and made a sandwich (since I hadn't eaten all day yesterday) and went to bed after talking to her. I'd exhausted myself to the point of sleep, finally, around 3AM. When I slept, I tried to sleep in different positions so that I wouldn't further injure myself, and woke up this morning with residual aching, but no real pain or spasming.
The trip to Walmart was uneventful, but expensive overall because I had to get stuff for the car (coolant and bug wash), water filters, and my cigarettes. The only other stuff I got was a few essentials -- ham and cheese, a loaf of bread, etc. Everything else I need I already have in the house. Again, I don't require much. I shouldn't have to do any shopping again until at least next weekend, if not longer.
I really think I'm just getting old more than anything else. It's difficult for me to keep up at a strenuous pace anymore (such as when I'm in overdrive) when it never used to be. It's difficult for me to pull an all-nighter and then drive to campus, teach, and come home before sleeping, when even a year or two ago it wasn't, and in undergrad, days like that were the norm for me (minus the teaching part, of course). It's exhausting for me to get up early and go to campus to teach four days a week now, when previously as a grad student I sometimes spent four much longer days on campus every week, including time spent teaching, and didn't get to come home at noon or earlier. It's not that I'm out of shape, though I am a little more than I'd like to be, but it's me getting old. My joints ache a lot now. It's hard for me to get any real restful sleep, but most of the time I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat when I don't want to or need to (it's only when I must sleep that my body won't let me). I creak and crack whenever I move around too much or when I'm too physically active for too long of a time, and even simple household chores like mowing the grass will wear me out for the rest of the day. Sure, a fair amount of this could be attributed to allergies or my smoking habit or both...but I've always had those. And it doesn't account for why my muscles decide to suddenly pull themselves in my sleep, the same sort of sleep I've always slept every night for many years.
I think it's ironic that today is Labor Day, and I've done little else but actual labor. Since waking up (around 11; I let myself rest) I have worked on my car, done two loads of laundry, debated on cutting the grass but decided not to since it's 86 outside right now (I'll do it in a few more days if/when it cools down some), have rewritten a lesson plan for my students, and I'm about to clean the cat box/room, take care of the trash for morning pickup, get a shower, and then probably -- if I still have energy left -- eat something. And then I have to read through my texts and create my lessons for the rest of this week for my students.
As an aside, I don't know how grass can grow six inches or more in ten days when we haven't gotten a drop of rain, and for five of those days it's been over 100 degrees. Shouldn't it be turning brown and dying? I'm all for having green grass in the yard, but when it grows like crazy even when there's no rain, it just creates more work for me, and more time I have to be outside sweating through every single pore in my poor aging body.
The working on the car I mentioned above was little more than checking and refilling fluids. My "low coolant" light has been on, constantly, even though I poured the last of the coolant I had before (1/3 of a bottle or so) into it about two weeks ago. This is probably because it's been so hot as of late, and when I drive the car when it's hot outside, it tends to use more coolant. I bought more last night, as mentioned, and refilled the reservoir (which wasn't, by the way, low at all) to a higher level in hopes that the light will go off, and in this heat it will help as I drive the car 200 miles a week. I also needed to refill my windshield washer fluid, which I was running quite low on in the car and had used the last of almost a year ago, so I bought that last night and refilled it as well. I checked the oil and put about another half-quart into it, not because it necessarily needed it, but because I had a bottle already opened, and if I already had the hood up to work on the other stuff, there's no reason I couldn't use the rest of it to save me time in another few weeks or so. I also looked at the belts and other connections under the hood to make sure they looked okay (they do), cleaned the inside of my windshield with the glass cleaner wipes I purchased when I last washed the car a few weeks ago, and cleaned off the license plate so that I could put my new registration sticker on it, which I did. As you may know, I try to perform these maintenance check-ups about once or twice a month, a little less in the winter, as the car is old and needs constant care like this more than I'd like to admit. I learned my lesson a year ago when I had to put $1400 into repairs in order to keep it running, and don't want to have to do that again anytime soon. I'll probably need two new front tires by the spring, though, depending on how bad this winter gets. The wheel bearing, of course, is still growly, but no more than it ever was. If it goes out, I'll have to get it fixed. All that's left, though, is to get gas tomorrow morning on my way to West campus. I could probably wait until Wednesday morning, but I don't like running down the gas any further than I have to, and I'm off my normal driving schedule due to taking Daisy's car down there on Thursday and having today off.
My week should be relatively light after today; I'll do more work today just doing stuff around the house than I'll do at school the rest of the week combined. I should be out of the house tomorrow and Thursday for a whopping three hours (at most) each day, and on Wednesday the biggest thing I have to do aside from teach my 011 class is fill out the background check form in the department on main campus and make some copies. In there sometime, whether I do it one day after I get home from classes or if I wait until Friday when I'm off, I'll have to mow the grass (as mentioned above), and pay a few small bills as I cross my fingers on getting that background check form processed super-quickly.
It just occurred to me that they've probably already processed all of my payroll stuff but, like the financial aid office does for student loans, they are waiting to let it drop until that form comes in and they can keep it on file. After all, it's not like any of my info has changed; it's all in the system from three years of previous employment there, and I've not changed my address, bank account, or anything like that. Oh well. I'll see what I have to do when I get in there on Wednesday.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Small Hassles
Since Daisy was here and just left on Friday, and with my exhaustion/pain issues I had then, I sort of slacked off for a little longer than I should have when it came to emails and other school-related tasks. Therefore, when I finally logged into my email this afternoon after finishing my last post here, I had this message waiting for me, from Friday afternoon:
Okay.
No, seriously, okay.
I had briefly discussed background check stuff before with the department's administration, since that was something that seriously surprised me when I first started as a GTA at the university -- there was no background check, no drug test, etc. None of that stuff was required. Apparently, later on into my tenure as a grad student, they changed this rule and required background checks for all of their incoming GTAs, but since I was already "in" at that point, I never had to do it.
My record is spotless, of course; the only thing I've ever been involved in, when it comes to the law, was a single speeding ticket I got, once, about a year and a half ago -- which I immediately paid and never had to worry about again. I've had to fill out numerous background check forms for other positions I applied to this past summer. They're nothing new to me at this point. Date of birth, seven years of addresses, other names or aliases, SSN, etc. Nothing major. It's not like I've ever not passed a background check; you have to try to not be able to pass one, really.
I replied that it was fine and that I'd fill out the form on Wednesday morning when I got back to main campus, as I'm teaching out west on Tuesday, thanked her for letting me know, and told her to let me know if there was anything else I needed to do. The department administrators are both wonderful women, and I adore them -- they keep that department running in a well-oiled fashion, and if I've ever needed anything administrative, they've taken care of it quickly and efficiently.
Furthermore, even if I have to wait an extra week or two to get my first check because of this, it's fine -- it's not like I'm going to starve or run out of money before then, and it's not like I'm not going to get paid for the classes I'm teaching. If I have to wait longer, I may have to use my credit cards a little more than usual, possibly, for getting groceries and gas, but I'll still be able to pay rent, pay bills, and survive just fine. It's not the end of the world.
I am amazed at my calmness when dealing with this scenario, to tell you the truth. Usually anything involving my money or finances will make me an absolute stressed-out mess. This time around? Eh. Do I have enough money to pay my bills? Yes? Then it doesn't matter, I'm fine. Even another month of waiting on my first paycheck would run me down a little more than I would expect to be, but it wouldn't destroy me or bankrupt me, and there's no reason to obsess about it because, unlike worrying about things like my student loans and jumping through all of the hoops I had to go through to ensure those would drop last year, the hoops this time are just boring paperwork and procedure. The administration ladies already know that I'm scheduled to get my first check on the second pay schedule of the department anyhow, so the worst thing that could happen, really, would be the processing of that background check making me skip my first scheduled payday of the 13th and starting on the 20th or 27th instead. Either way, it won't break me or irritate me; it's just something I have to deal with.
They would still have to schedule me on one of those pre-existing pay schedules, by the way; if they didn't, the university would have to completely recalculate my amount per check in order to keep each one equal for the shorter amount of time I'd be getting paid because of any delay in processing. I somehow doubt the university's payroll department would want to put in the work to do that for a bottom-rung adjunct professor.
Ironically, this payroll issue comes no more than a day after I learned that Newton is raising its water rates by an average of $17 a month for everyone in the city. My normal water bill is about $60-65 per month for just me in a one-person household. I have always watched my water usage anyhow; my toilet upstairs developed a leak around the seal in the back tank, and were I to allow it to run, it would run constantly, as it just keeps draining into the bowl around that seal. I've been turning it off after each flush for the better part of a year now. Could I replace that gasket quickly and easily? Yeah, probably, but I'm lazy. It's easier, and saves water, just to turn it on and off. The only other water I use is when I run the dishwasher (about once every two weeks or so), do a load of laundry (once or twice a week) and when I shower -- which I can do quickly, and when it's hot I don't shower every day because I'll just be coated in sweat again shortly thereafter. They're trying to justify the rate increase because of several local factors and the cost of water in general, but I already think paying $65 a month or so for water is ludicrously expensive, especially when I know people in other towns/states who pay, like, $15-30 at most.
I've been trying to spend as little actual money as possible anyhow; when I got groceries for Daisy's visit, I did it with my Citi card. The balance was paid off on that back in July. When I get gas for myself or for Daisy, I do it on my Amazon Visa card almost exclusively, as I get points for it and it allows me to pay it off all at once instead of in chunks out of my bank account at possibly inopportune times. My Discover card hasn't yet been used, but is kept in case of emergency, as you folks know, such as needing to replace a vital part on the car or something along those lines. If I have the money, I pay off the entirety of my credit card balances every month. If I have to budget, I'll pay half and half and stretch it out a little more. When I go to Walmart, probably tonight or tomorrow night, I'll more than likely use the Citi card again. No big deal. Once I start getting my regular paychecks I'll be able to clean off those balances once more with no real issues, and I save my bank account's money for things that I must write checks for, such as rent, the water bill, the electric and cable bills, etc.
No, I don't trust those "online bill pay" systems, or those systems that do automatic debit from my account. I keep track of every cent I spend, and every cent I have. If I can avoid it, I'll never do online bill pay. Ever. Yes, I'm one of those people. Daisy finds this extremely old-fashioned of me, and was slightly offended when I told her that even after we're married, we may have a joint bank account for some things, but I will always have my own bank account that my paychecks (or the vast majority of them) go into to be able to keep track of every cent I have. That's another one of my big-time complexes/neuroses. When I've been poor, and I mean out of money, REALLY poor and had less than $2 to my name in my bank account, I learned how important it is to keep track of every little cent. Most people don't understand what that's like, because they've never been in that situation before. If I can help it, I will never be in that situation again, and being able to track absolutely everything is the way I will prevent that.
But yeah, the payroll thing at work isn't a big deal, and neither are my finances right now or for the next month or so. I'll get paid when I get paid. Yes, I hope it's sooner rather than later, but in the big picture of things, it doesn't really matter. I don't even really have to get any real food or groceries when I go to Walmart; I have a ton of stuff left over from Daisy's visit.
It's gotten hotter since this morning; the sun has come out and the temperature has shot up by eight or nine degrees since I woke up. The rain/storms they were calling for previously have now basically been removed from the forecast, and it appears that for the next ten days or so, our scorching heat wave will continue with no rain to speak of -- though the low 90s are as hot as the Weather Channel is currently predicting. Seeing as it's September now, I really wish fall weather would start to kick in a little bit more and give us more seasonal highs in the 70s or low 80s at best, with mornings in the 40s and 50s. I like being able to breathe and stay sweat-free when I need to be on one campus or the other four days a week, dressing somewhat classily on most of those days. "Hoodie weather" coming means I can actually relax my dress code a bit, especially for teaching on the main campus. I am still completely unconcerned what I wear to teach in on West campus, since nobody sees me there and I have no one to impress. I've also sort of ingrained into my 101 students' heads already that they're lucky to have a professor instead of a GTA teaching their class, so I've already got a ton of unspoken respect from them. I'm good at doing little mental tricks like that. I've learned a lot over my years of teaching -- having your students be able to identify with you as a person and not just as a scary authority figure in charge is a great way to foster in-class discussion and/or subconsciously help them produce better work.
Tonight I plan to Skype with Daisy before she goes to work, then get something to eat and go back to bed. There's no football on (at least none that I can watch) and there's nothing pressing to do that can't wait until tomorrow.
Hey Brandon,I was just informed that you cannot get on the payroll books until you have passed a background check. I have the form. Don’t freak. It’s just because you became a GTA before they started requiring them. Now that you are a lecturer you will need it. Don’t drive in today because the office is closing at 1:00 today and the mail has already gone out for the day.Sorry, bub,[Administrator]
Okay.
No, seriously, okay.
I had briefly discussed background check stuff before with the department's administration, since that was something that seriously surprised me when I first started as a GTA at the university -- there was no background check, no drug test, etc. None of that stuff was required. Apparently, later on into my tenure as a grad student, they changed this rule and required background checks for all of their incoming GTAs, but since I was already "in" at that point, I never had to do it.
My record is spotless, of course; the only thing I've ever been involved in, when it comes to the law, was a single speeding ticket I got, once, about a year and a half ago -- which I immediately paid and never had to worry about again. I've had to fill out numerous background check forms for other positions I applied to this past summer. They're nothing new to me at this point. Date of birth, seven years of addresses, other names or aliases, SSN, etc. Nothing major. It's not like I've ever not passed a background check; you have to try to not be able to pass one, really.
I replied that it was fine and that I'd fill out the form on Wednesday morning when I got back to main campus, as I'm teaching out west on Tuesday, thanked her for letting me know, and told her to let me know if there was anything else I needed to do. The department administrators are both wonderful women, and I adore them -- they keep that department running in a well-oiled fashion, and if I've ever needed anything administrative, they've taken care of it quickly and efficiently.
Furthermore, even if I have to wait an extra week or two to get my first check because of this, it's fine -- it's not like I'm going to starve or run out of money before then, and it's not like I'm not going to get paid for the classes I'm teaching. If I have to wait longer, I may have to use my credit cards a little more than usual, possibly, for getting groceries and gas, but I'll still be able to pay rent, pay bills, and survive just fine. It's not the end of the world.
I am amazed at my calmness when dealing with this scenario, to tell you the truth. Usually anything involving my money or finances will make me an absolute stressed-out mess. This time around? Eh. Do I have enough money to pay my bills? Yes? Then it doesn't matter, I'm fine. Even another month of waiting on my first paycheck would run me down a little more than I would expect to be, but it wouldn't destroy me or bankrupt me, and there's no reason to obsess about it because, unlike worrying about things like my student loans and jumping through all of the hoops I had to go through to ensure those would drop last year, the hoops this time are just boring paperwork and procedure. The administration ladies already know that I'm scheduled to get my first check on the second pay schedule of the department anyhow, so the worst thing that could happen, really, would be the processing of that background check making me skip my first scheduled payday of the 13th and starting on the 20th or 27th instead. Either way, it won't break me or irritate me; it's just something I have to deal with.
They would still have to schedule me on one of those pre-existing pay schedules, by the way; if they didn't, the university would have to completely recalculate my amount per check in order to keep each one equal for the shorter amount of time I'd be getting paid because of any delay in processing. I somehow doubt the university's payroll department would want to put in the work to do that for a bottom-rung adjunct professor.
Ironically, this payroll issue comes no more than a day after I learned that Newton is raising its water rates by an average of $17 a month for everyone in the city. My normal water bill is about $60-65 per month for just me in a one-person household. I have always watched my water usage anyhow; my toilet upstairs developed a leak around the seal in the back tank, and were I to allow it to run, it would run constantly, as it just keeps draining into the bowl around that seal. I've been turning it off after each flush for the better part of a year now. Could I replace that gasket quickly and easily? Yeah, probably, but I'm lazy. It's easier, and saves water, just to turn it on and off. The only other water I use is when I run the dishwasher (about once every two weeks or so), do a load of laundry (once or twice a week) and when I shower -- which I can do quickly, and when it's hot I don't shower every day because I'll just be coated in sweat again shortly thereafter. They're trying to justify the rate increase because of several local factors and the cost of water in general, but I already think paying $65 a month or so for water is ludicrously expensive, especially when I know people in other towns/states who pay, like, $15-30 at most.
I've been trying to spend as little actual money as possible anyhow; when I got groceries for Daisy's visit, I did it with my Citi card. The balance was paid off on that back in July. When I get gas for myself or for Daisy, I do it on my Amazon Visa card almost exclusively, as I get points for it and it allows me to pay it off all at once instead of in chunks out of my bank account at possibly inopportune times. My Discover card hasn't yet been used, but is kept in case of emergency, as you folks know, such as needing to replace a vital part on the car or something along those lines. If I have the money, I pay off the entirety of my credit card balances every month. If I have to budget, I'll pay half and half and stretch it out a little more. When I go to Walmart, probably tonight or tomorrow night, I'll more than likely use the Citi card again. No big deal. Once I start getting my regular paychecks I'll be able to clean off those balances once more with no real issues, and I save my bank account's money for things that I must write checks for, such as rent, the water bill, the electric and cable bills, etc.
No, I don't trust those "online bill pay" systems, or those systems that do automatic debit from my account. I keep track of every cent I spend, and every cent I have. If I can avoid it, I'll never do online bill pay. Ever. Yes, I'm one of those people. Daisy finds this extremely old-fashioned of me, and was slightly offended when I told her that even after we're married, we may have a joint bank account for some things, but I will always have my own bank account that my paychecks (or the vast majority of them) go into to be able to keep track of every cent I have. That's another one of my big-time complexes/neuroses. When I've been poor, and I mean out of money, REALLY poor and had less than $2 to my name in my bank account, I learned how important it is to keep track of every little cent. Most people don't understand what that's like, because they've never been in that situation before. If I can help it, I will never be in that situation again, and being able to track absolutely everything is the way I will prevent that.
But yeah, the payroll thing at work isn't a big deal, and neither are my finances right now or for the next month or so. I'll get paid when I get paid. Yes, I hope it's sooner rather than later, but in the big picture of things, it doesn't really matter. I don't even really have to get any real food or groceries when I go to Walmart; I have a ton of stuff left over from Daisy's visit.
It's gotten hotter since this morning; the sun has come out and the temperature has shot up by eight or nine degrees since I woke up. The rain/storms they were calling for previously have now basically been removed from the forecast, and it appears that for the next ten days or so, our scorching heat wave will continue with no rain to speak of -- though the low 90s are as hot as the Weather Channel is currently predicting. Seeing as it's September now, I really wish fall weather would start to kick in a little bit more and give us more seasonal highs in the 70s or low 80s at best, with mornings in the 40s and 50s. I like being able to breathe and stay sweat-free when I need to be on one campus or the other four days a week, dressing somewhat classily on most of those days. "Hoodie weather" coming means I can actually relax my dress code a bit, especially for teaching on the main campus. I am still completely unconcerned what I wear to teach in on West campus, since nobody sees me there and I have no one to impress. I've also sort of ingrained into my 101 students' heads already that they're lucky to have a professor instead of a GTA teaching their class, so I've already got a ton of unspoken respect from them. I'm good at doing little mental tricks like that. I've learned a lot over my years of teaching -- having your students be able to identify with you as a person and not just as a scary authority figure in charge is a great way to foster in-class discussion and/or subconsciously help them produce better work.
Tonight I plan to Skype with Daisy before she goes to work, then get something to eat and go back to bed. There's no football on (at least none that I can watch) and there's nothing pressing to do that can't wait until tomorrow.
Overdrive, Part II
By the time Wednesday afternoon had rolled around, the hardest and most strenuous part(s) of my week were finished. Thursday entailed my other short day of the week, teaching my tiny class on the near-deserted West campus, a class which I'd asked Daisy if she wanted to accompany me to in order to be able to see me teach. So, even while in overdrive, I could indeed relax a little bit, and I had the free time to do so. Once Daisy awakened, I kicked the AC on and left it on.
As an aside, you may know that I don't run my AC 24/7. I can't; it's not just about the electric bill, but it's because running it for more than a few hours at a time when absolutely necessary is basically pointless -- it'll never get down below 85-90 on the top floor of my house, and if it runs too long when it's incredibly hot outside, the condenser on the AC unit will freeze up, the fan/unit itself will begin to squeak and whine, and it will stop blowing any cool air -- but it won't turn off. When this happens I have to turn it off for a few hours to let it "relax," I suppose, before it will work correctly again. It's an old, old central air unit.
I've not had to run my AC that much this summer, so my electric bill hasn't been a huge concern (this month's bill is a scant $47). For almost a month, the highs were in the 70s or low 80s and it was raining/storming every day, sometimes giving us several inches of rain at a time. That sort of weather is heavenly here in Kansas during the summer when for the past two or three years it's been over 100 every day from mid-May to early September. Well, the rainy, cool weather stopped shortly before classes started, and we've been in a slowly-climbing dry heat wave ever since. Temperatures the first week of class were in the low 90s every day. Last week they were in the mid-to-high 90s. Right now, on Saturday afternoon, it's 102 and feels like 106.5 outside. This does not help my pain levels (which, again, I'll get to) and every effort I make to stay properly hydrated does little more than give me more sweat to soak into every piece of clothing currently on my body. I took off my shirt hours ago because it was wet and soaked through, and now the sweat running down my torso (yes, running down my body in streams) is hitting my boxers and soaking them through as well.
Neither Daisy nor I tolerate heat well; her house in Omaha is constantly set at 70 degrees, and it stays there (as I mentioned before). Her parents have an excellent heating/cooling system, and my own system is outdated, works sporadically, and is installed in a house built by the Winnebago company (yes, the RV people) in the 1960s, which means that it's not exactly the best insulated house on the block. While I love my house, the temperatures in the summer cannot be sealed out of it like Daisy's house. Because of this, and because of our free time, we desperately wanted to get out of my hell-like hotbox of a home to go do something someplace that had air conditioning. A movie, of course, was our first choice.
Daisy and I go to the movies almost every time she comes to visit, as I've written here before. At this point it's not generally about the movie; it's about getting out of the house and doing something together, something fun. I so, so very rarely go see movies by myself; it has to be something really exciting for me to take my own time and money to go see a movie alone. In the weeks leading up to Daisy's visit, I knew of several movies which were coming out, movies that I was excited for, but also most of which she would absolutely not want to see, no way no how. I desperately want to see Kick-Ass 2, for example, but Daisy abhors violence in almost all forms, and she hasn't seen the first one. I wasn't going to subject her to that, throwing her into a comic book movie that she had no desire to see and no clue about the backstory. I even more desperately wanted to see The World's End, which was scheduled to start playing in Newton's theater last weekend, but at the last minute, they didn't end up getting it. This made me very, very sad. Daisy and I could've driven to Wichita in the heat and traffic to find a theater which was playing it, but it wasn't even really worth it. Again, it's not about the movie for us, but the experience. It's our own "date night" scenario. Something else that's wonderful -- and a tip for any other vegans out there -- the popcorn at about 90% of movie theaters is vegan. Yes, the buttery, sodium-filled popcorn. The butter flavoring on it is soy-based, and the oil it's popped in is coconut oil. As long as you don't get the "extra butter" squirts, your popcorn is vegan.
Yes, Daisy and I did research on this, because we had to. This is not true for every theater, of course, so do your own research for your local movie house.
So, because Daisy loves popcorn and has developed a newfound addiction to it since the theater popcorn here is vegan, we go to the movies all the time. This summer alone, as I told her, I've probably seen more movies in the theater than the past five or six years combined. This summer, she and I have seen Star Trek Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, The Wolverine, and now Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. That's five movies. In one summer. I haven't seen that many movies in a theater in a long, long time, let alone over the span of three months. To put this into perspective, the last two movies I saw in a theater before this summer were Green Lantern and Inglourious Basterds.
As for the Percy Jackson movie, we didn't even know what we were going to see when we got to the theater, as the lineup here in Newton was awful. Here's what's playing up here right now:
Anyway.
We came home and again kicked on the AC; it was nearly 100 degrees on Thursday afternoon, and there was no way we could deal with that without the AC. When it's 100 outside, it's easily 95 upstairs, if not hotter, unless the AC is running. Right now it's 11PM, and it's still 84...outside. It's 95.9 in my room as I'm typing this.
We made a lunch, and I put the last Harry Potter movie on, as neither of us had seen it yey (despite the fact that it's been out for over two years). I've owned it on DVD since Black Friday either last year or the year before, when Walmart put it on their DVD deep-sale list, but it sat on my shelf forever and I never got around to watching it. I do this a lot with movies; I have all three of the Lord of the Rings movies as well, and they're all still in their plastic wrap, unopened. I've had them for years.
My week was over, and I was beginning to wind down from overdrive mode. I'd been running hardcore for five or six days at that point, and my body was less than happy about it. Despite the fact that I was very interested in the movie, about halfway through it I slunk down onto the couch behind Daisy and passed out. And I needed it. Part of it was because I'd just eaten, but a larger part of it was because we didn't have any plans for the rest of the day/night and because my week was over. My body was starting to go into cooldown mode, like an engine that had been overheated and needs to cool off before it can perform again. I needed rest in the worst way. While I'd slept a decent amount the night before, having not slept and having kept up the pace I'd kept for the past week, all of those lost hours of sleep and relaxation/decompression time were seriously beginning to catch up with me. Even I can't stay in overdrive indefinitely. So, I passed out for about 90 minutes or so. I only awoke when Daisy had finished the movie and had turned off the TV, and the lack of sound is what woke me.
"We can go downstairs and nap if you want, babe," she told me.
"No," I replied. "you can, if you want, but I can't. I won't get up."
One of the reasons I had purposely let myself fall asleep on the couch is because it's not comfortable at all, and because it's excruciatingly hot upstairs. That means I won't sleep deeply when I nap there because I cannot fully rest when I'm uncomfortable and hot. If I'd gone downstairs I would have passed out for many hours, and missed a lot of time that could have otherwise been spent with Daisy during one of the few visits we'll get to have together this semester. Napping on the couch is one of the very few ways I can force a nap to be a short "power nap" sort of scenario, because otherwise I sleep and sleep hard, always, when I go to sleep and desperately need it.
I had asked Daisy before what her departure plans were; as she goes back to work on Friday nights, it's not uncommon for her to come down on a Tuesday, stay until Thursday night, and then drive home in the later hours that night. Sometimes, as the case was this past week, she will stay until Friday morning or early afternoon, and then she'll get up, pack up, drive home and go to work a few hours after she gets back. Schedule-wise, they're both about the same to her, with the only difference being where she sleeps beforehand. If she leaves on Thursday night, she gets home in the middle of the night on Friday morning and sleeps her normal schedule at home before work. If she leaves on Friday, she does that sleeping here, and then drives up there before work. She's left on Thursdays before if she has plans with friends back home in Omaha or if I have a bunch of stuff to do over the weekend, for example. This time, she planned to leave on Friday morning, or barring that, sleep until noon on Friday and then head home, because she knew she wouldn't sleep before work anyway. This meant that our Thursday night was wide-open.
"There's football on tonight," I said. "We can cook the tacos and nachos and have a mini-football party with food and beer."
And that's what we did. We watched the Chiefs destroy the Packers -- destroy them so hard, especially in the second half, that the Packers released Vince Young from their roster afterwards, since they'd lost to arguably one of the worst teams in professional football. We went to bed almost immediately after the game was over, as it had since gotten so hot in the upstairs of the house that we couldn't stand it.
Here, finally, is where the story of my pain kicks in.
Somehow, in the course of the overnight while I was sleeping, I pulled a muscle on the left side of my chest. It was a muscle that somehow connected to a tendon or another muscle in my back and shoulder/shoulder blade area, and also extended not only into and around my lung/ribs, but into my tricep. I don't know what muscle this is, or why/how I pulled it in my sleep, but it just ached. Coughing/sneezing (because of my terrible allergies) was so painful. Moving my arm and torso in certain ways would trigger a spasm, which was also incredibly painful. Putting weight or pressure on it, such as to pull myself up or to lean against a wall or doorjamb, was excruciating.
And all of this happened while I was asleep. I didn't think I'd slept in any strange position, and I'd been fine when I went to bed. Tired, yes, but not in pain. The aching is what woke me up on Friday morning, at 6AM, and I came upstairs then because it was so uncomfortable. When I woke Daisy up around 11 or so (after she'd slept, again, for twelve hours) I told her about it, but didn't go into a lot of detail because I didn't want her to worry about me. I'm like a cat; I hide pain exceedingly well. Because it hurt when I coughed or breathed hard, I though that perhaps it was a lung infection that was causing all of my muscles around it to hurt/ache, and the word emphysema floated through my mind. I shook it off, I made her breakfast and helped her pack up all of her stuff, and kissed her goodbye when she left around 1PM or so.
I never thought until later that afternoon/evening that it was probably due to my muscles and body being exceedingly tired and fatigued from being in overdrive for a solid week. And, as the day went on, it got worse. I wouldn't even do anything; I'd be sitting still, and it would spasm. Hard. And it almost had me doubling over in shooting pain. By the time Daisy got home that afternoon and went to work that night, my entire upper body was on fire. I could barely stand up straight -- the muscles had felt like they'd locked up and the pain had spread to encompass most of my back, both shoulder blades, and both sides of my chest. This wasn't a simple pulled muscle or aching tendon at this point -- this was the upper half of my body trying to systematically shut down on me, muscles locking up and refusing to move without pain. Everything was going stiff. Every time I walked around the house or moved too quickly, everything would spasm, and I'd be in so much pain that I was shaking. I'd eaten, I'd kept myself hydrated, but I knew the heat (over 100 on Friday) was probably contributing to it as well. I sent Daisy a message telling her that I was still in a lot of muscle aches/pain and that I was going to bed early. This was around 8:30 on Friday night.
As my allergies were killing me and because I was in pain, I took a pair of sinus congestion and pain pills, the ones that have Tylenol in them in addition to the decongestants, because this time I truly needed both drugs. When I went to bed, I was trembling because of the process it took for me to actually lay down flat on the mattress and get into a comfortable position to sleep. Even laying down and not moving, every few minutes the muscles would contract and spasm hard, making me involuntarily tense up and hurt more. If you've ever had a knot in your calf muscles, that involuntary cramp in the night that wakes you from a dead sleep in horrible pain and won't go away until you straighten out those muscles by pointing your toes up toward your knee, imagine that -- but imagine it throughout your entire chest and shoulder blades, and imagine it happening every five minutes or so. That's what it was like.
I don't know what happened in the night, but when my body told me to go to bed because of the pain, I did, and in the overnight hours, while I slept, my body and mindset finally turned off overdrive mode. I had a long weekend ahead of me with only a little work to take care of, and Daisy was gone; finally, my unconscious/subconscious mind could turn off, and inwardly I knew I could rest and recuperate. I slept. I slept hard. Pete threw up on the bed six inches from my head, and I didn't even wake up for it. That's how out I was. What I do know is that when I awakened yesterday morning, 95% of the pain was gone -- and by yesterday afternoon, it was completely gone without a trace.
Honestly, I think it was my body telling me that it was time to end overdrive, that I could not go on any longer at the pace I was going with as little sleep as I was getting and as little food as I'd been eating. Yes, I'd had that big meal on Thursday night, but as I mentioned in my previous post, that was really the only true meal I'd had all week that wasn't just a quick sandwich or snack. Daisy and I both attempted to eat regularly during her visit, but I didn't eat a lot otherwise. My sleep cycles were seriously thrown off, and I had been out-and-about a lot more than normal, and since she was here I was smoking a lot less and drinking a lot less coffee, my fuels for overdrive. It was like running out of gas; the car just stops after a while of driving on nothing but fumes.
Regardless, I am out of that mode now, and am feeling back to normal. I've spent the majority of my long weekend trying to decompress and recover, sleep normal hours and take care of tasks at my own pace. It's also good that I will start my week softly, with my easy day, and I have a little more recuperation time because of the Labor Day holiday tomorrow. This morning, I got up at 10 and have done absolutely nothing of consequence all day long -- I played a video game and made coffee. Between now and Tuesday I have to highlight a few sections to teach in my 101 textbook and go to Walmart to get cigarettes and coolant for the car, but I really have nothing else major to do. Daisy is working a weird schedule tonight because of the holiday, and I'll probably be going to bed again rather early to maximize the amount of sleep I can get. It's not as hot today -- it's barely 80 right now and it's cloudy/gray for the first time in two weeks. It may rain/storm this afternoon, which would be incredibly welcome after the scorching, burning heat we've had.
I won't have to be in overdrive again for a while; my students don't turn in their first papers until the last week of this month, and I won't start teaching my 210 class until October 10. I've even made up all my handouts and other lessons I need to cover this week, and my outfits for teaching have already been laid out and readied for the week as well. Today and tomorrow will be total, sit-around-in-my-underwear relaxation days.
And I need those days. I so, so need them.
As an aside, you may know that I don't run my AC 24/7. I can't; it's not just about the electric bill, but it's because running it for more than a few hours at a time when absolutely necessary is basically pointless -- it'll never get down below 85-90 on the top floor of my house, and if it runs too long when it's incredibly hot outside, the condenser on the AC unit will freeze up, the fan/unit itself will begin to squeak and whine, and it will stop blowing any cool air -- but it won't turn off. When this happens I have to turn it off for a few hours to let it "relax," I suppose, before it will work correctly again. It's an old, old central air unit.
I've not had to run my AC that much this summer, so my electric bill hasn't been a huge concern (this month's bill is a scant $47). For almost a month, the highs were in the 70s or low 80s and it was raining/storming every day, sometimes giving us several inches of rain at a time. That sort of weather is heavenly here in Kansas during the summer when for the past two or three years it's been over 100 every day from mid-May to early September. Well, the rainy, cool weather stopped shortly before classes started, and we've been in a slowly-climbing dry heat wave ever since. Temperatures the first week of class were in the low 90s every day. Last week they were in the mid-to-high 90s. Right now, on Saturday afternoon, it's 102 and feels like 106.5 outside. This does not help my pain levels (which, again, I'll get to) and every effort I make to stay properly hydrated does little more than give me more sweat to soak into every piece of clothing currently on my body. I took off my shirt hours ago because it was wet and soaked through, and now the sweat running down my torso (yes, running down my body in streams) is hitting my boxers and soaking them through as well.
Neither Daisy nor I tolerate heat well; her house in Omaha is constantly set at 70 degrees, and it stays there (as I mentioned before). Her parents have an excellent heating/cooling system, and my own system is outdated, works sporadically, and is installed in a house built by the Winnebago company (yes, the RV people) in the 1960s, which means that it's not exactly the best insulated house on the block. While I love my house, the temperatures in the summer cannot be sealed out of it like Daisy's house. Because of this, and because of our free time, we desperately wanted to get out of my hell-like hotbox of a home to go do something someplace that had air conditioning. A movie, of course, was our first choice.
Daisy and I go to the movies almost every time she comes to visit, as I've written here before. At this point it's not generally about the movie; it's about getting out of the house and doing something together, something fun. I so, so very rarely go see movies by myself; it has to be something really exciting for me to take my own time and money to go see a movie alone. In the weeks leading up to Daisy's visit, I knew of several movies which were coming out, movies that I was excited for, but also most of which she would absolutely not want to see, no way no how. I desperately want to see Kick-Ass 2, for example, but Daisy abhors violence in almost all forms, and she hasn't seen the first one. I wasn't going to subject her to that, throwing her into a comic book movie that she had no desire to see and no clue about the backstory. I even more desperately wanted to see The World's End, which was scheduled to start playing in Newton's theater last weekend, but at the last minute, they didn't end up getting it. This made me very, very sad. Daisy and I could've driven to Wichita in the heat and traffic to find a theater which was playing it, but it wasn't even really worth it. Again, it's not about the movie for us, but the experience. It's our own "date night" scenario. Something else that's wonderful -- and a tip for any other vegans out there -- the popcorn at about 90% of movie theaters is vegan. Yes, the buttery, sodium-filled popcorn. The butter flavoring on it is soy-based, and the oil it's popped in is coconut oil. As long as you don't get the "extra butter" squirts, your popcorn is vegan.
Yes, Daisy and I did research on this, because we had to. This is not true for every theater, of course, so do your own research for your local movie house.
So, because Daisy loves popcorn and has developed a newfound addiction to it since the theater popcorn here is vegan, we go to the movies all the time. This summer alone, as I told her, I've probably seen more movies in the theater than the past five or six years combined. This summer, she and I have seen Star Trek Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, The Wolverine, and now Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. That's five movies. In one summer. I haven't seen that many movies in a theater in a long, long time, let alone over the span of three months. To put this into perspective, the last two movies I saw in a theater before this summer were Green Lantern and Inglourious Basterds.
As for the Percy Jackson movie, we didn't even know what we were going to see when we got to the theater, as the lineup here in Newton was awful. Here's what's playing up here right now:
It's awful, as you can see. I've never even heard of half of these movies, and the ones I had, I mostly had no interest whatsoever in. I won't see Elysium because it's made by the people who did District 9, and let me tell you, I fucking hated that movie (apparently, I was one of the only people on the planet who did) because it was exceedingly boring to me and was not at all how it had been advertised on posters or in the trailers. I wasn't about to fall for that trap twice. I had no desire to see Planes or We're The Millers, and I'd never heard of The Butler or The Mortal Instruments, probably because I don't watch TV and would never see ads for them. The One Direction movie wasn't playing when we went over there, but obviously it's not like I would've gone to see that tripe either, and I already wrote above about why I wasn't going to subject Daisy to Kick-Ass 2. So, really, the second Percy Jackson movie was the only one either of us were really interested in. Daisy had told me weeks before that she wanted to see it, and I'd bought the first one from one of the DVD bins in Walmart so that I could watch it and know what was going on. Daisy also didn't tell me until we were already sitting in the theater to watch it that she hadn't seen the first one, but wanted to see the second because it "looked pretty." I gave her the thirty-second rundown of the first movie and who the characters were...which was also about the first thirty seconds of the second movie once it started.
We went home after the movie -- after a stop for a while at the Rue 21 store next to the theater -- and it was even hotter than before; the temperature reached 98 on Wednesday. She'd slept for twelve hours, but I was running on less than five -- over the course of more than two days at this point. The heat and my fatigue was making all of my muscles and joints ache. We ate a small dinner later on, as we were both filled with popcorn until we could digest it properly, and eventually (to escape the heat up here) went downstairs to bed fairly early -- I think around 10 or so. I don't remember exactly because, again, deliriously tired and in overdrive. I seriously don't even remember going to bed. I'd been awake all day since 5AM, in the heat, had driven to and from campus, and had stayed awake and lucid to see a movie and go clothes shopping with Daisy -- I was completely and totally out of it.
I set the alarm for 5 and told Daisy I'd get up then, and get her up around 7 so that she could rest longer before we had to leave the house around 8. I begin teaching at 9:15, and I needed to fill her gas tank for her beforehand as she was running low, we were taking her car, she'd need gas to get back home, and it takes roughly half an hour or a little more to get from my house out to the countryside of West campus. I will almost always fill her gas tank for her when she's here; regardless of whether I'm visiting Omaha with her or not during any given excursion, I will fill her tank at least once. That's the kind of person I am. If she's coming all this way, the least I can do is replenish her gas.
So, to cut to the chase, that's what we did. I got up, woke her two hours later, she got ready, got her gas, and we were off -- Daisy would get to see me teach for the first time.
My 101 class on West campus had little to cover on Thursday; I was introducing their first paper assignment to them, which involved giving out a good spate of four or five handouts discussing that paper, formatting of all of the papers in the class, and how workshops would operate before we dismissed. I don't have a whole lot to go over on days like that -- the objective is to lay out the assignment before them and get them thinking about it -- so it was a good day for her to watch me teach. We also briefly discussed "The List of Forbidden Topics," which will become more prominent later in the semester as they get to branch out more on things they'd like to write, and I could see in Daisy's face shock and awe when I mentioned that they weren't allowed to write on topics like abortion, religious issues, racial issues, drug/alcohol issues, global warming/cooling, etc. The list contains many things, most of them hot-button issues that, in a state as backwards and redneck as Kansas is, would (and at times have) trigger(ed) screaming matches during workshop.
"Why can't they write on those topics?" she asked me in the car on the way home. "Shouldn't these kids be able to write on whatever they want? It's like a restriction on their freedom of speech."
"When I started teaching in 2010, we were given a list of topics that, as GTAs, it would probably not be the best idea to let our students write about as they are emotionally-charged or heavily biased topics," I said. "Abortion, for example. These kids are freshmen, and most of them -- since they live in Kansas -- are probably highly religious and/or Republican. They're not going to be able to make a cohesive, balanced argument without logical fallacies, outright falsehoods being passed off as facts, or religion weaving its way into their viewpoints, and a paper written with that passed off as 'research' and 'argument' will fail because it can't stand on its own."
Daisy gave me yet another shocked look.
"What?" I asked. "The topics on the forbidden list were put on there for reasons like that, and for the additional reasons that a.) I don't want to read a heavily biased, bigoted or otherwise non-fact-based rhetoric on why gays can't marry or why abortion should be outlawed, and b.) because these papers are workshopped in class. There have been screaming matches in workshop of kids arguing back and forth not about the papers themselves, but about the opinions and controversial solutions proposed by the students writing said papers. The point of workshop is so that the class can help each other with their papers, not to fight over what they think."
"Okay," Daisy said, "but see, that's unacceptable; they're in a classroom environment and they need to control themselves, no matter whether their own opinions differ from those of their classmates or not. If they can't be civil, kick them out of class."
I've only ever had to kick students out of my class twice over the course of my entire teaching career -- and it was, both times, over starting arguments like those in workshop.
"But they don't think that way, honey," I told her. "I agree with you, but again, these are eighteen-year-olds for the most part. They're not like us. We have degrees, we've been through all of this before, and we have tact and discipline. These kids are a generation removed from us. They're like a completely different species. Left unrestrained, they'll use emotional appeal and bias and religion and who knows what else in their papers regardless of my telling them not to, because they've never learned how to argue academically before -- not with all of that 'no child left behind' bullshit all of them grew up with. Most of them weren't taught how to write in high school; that much is evident from the large amount of errors and other problems I see in their papers even after I've gone over the material in excruciating detail -- they were simply taught how to pass tests."
"Furthermore," I added, "to be able to learn how to write effectively and make balanced arguments, sometimes first year composition students must write about something boring, something they're detached from, something they have no vested interest in, because if they don't -- whether they realize it or not -- their own bias toward one side or the other will creep into their writing, and once that ball gets rolling, well, they won't focus on keeping the argument balanced, only on why their side is the 'right' side."
"But they do have the ability to go out and research some of these topics in an unbiased way, to get hard facts on them, to get statistics on a lot of them. Like for abortion. There have been studies done on when a fetus can feel pain, for example--"
"Again," I said, "they won't. They won't do that research. I know this, I've seen it. If I allowed them to write on the abortion debate, they'd go out to some crazy right-wing 'abortion is murder' site for their research, or they'd find some way to weave it back into religion, while evading the overall main points and disregarding hard medical facts in favor of falsehoods or rhetoric. None of them care enough to put a scientific or medical research level of work into their research and writing for a simple 101 class, no matter how much we tell them to, and no matter how much we physically show them how to get academic, literary sources for their articles."
"But they could," Daisy said. "That's all I'm trying to say. That information is out there, and they have access to it. You shouldn't shut down topics simply because you don't want to read papers on them or don't have enough faith in your students to do that sort of work."
"They're not taking the class because they want to, they're taking it because it's required," I said. "I adhere to the list mainly because I've seen students write papers on some of the topics on it in the past, and they can't do it correctly. They want to write on those things simply because they are controversial, not because they care highly about the class -- they want to puff out their proverbial chests and make it a show, and hope they get that 'A for effort' they always got in high school."
"Do you not have students who write well no matter what, whether it's a controversial topic or not?"
"I do," I said. "[Former student, now friend] wrote a magnificent argument paper in my class discussing and researching polyamorous relationships and if they can truly work, and that was fine -- but she was an English major and work of that caliber is extremely uncommon amongst average composition students. No amount of great teaching or high enthusiasm in the classroom is truly going to make most students care about a class they're forced to take, especially if they're not English majors. That's why they want to write papers on 'why lowering the drinking age to 18 would be awesome' or 'man, pot should totally be legalized'. That's what they're supposedly passionate about, but they won't do enough scholarly research to actually find, or give, legitimate reasons why they're taking that position. They won't think that far ahead, they'll list a lot of superficial or biased sources, and their argument will fall flat."
I saw Daisy's point. I did, truly. I don't like restricting what my students can write on, but this is the beginning of my fourth year of teaching English composition courses, and I've seen what these students do (or, really, don't do) when left unrestricted and without structure. You can't tell these kids to write whatever they want and give them free reign on it. They fail. Plain and simple, they fail. They begin writing papers on subjects they desperately want to argue for, such as pot legalization or why abortion should be outlawed, and they don't yet have the skills or experience to argue those subjects effectively or academically -- at least not in English 101, anyway. Against my advisement, they'll use logical fallacies or cite "facts" that are just plain wrong, they'll use biased sources, they'll misrepresent their sources, and they'll do anything they can (except what they're supposed to do) to make their argument sound high and mighty. At worst, they'll write a one-sided, unbalanced, biased argument that doesn't take any opposing viewpoints into account -- simply because they hold their own viewpoint, out of arrogance, as the only valid one. I've seen it all. And all of those papers have failed. Every single one.
"It's a state-run university," Daisy said, "where opposing viewpoints, even if controversial, should still be allowed to be discussed, not forbidden."
"I didn't come up with the list," I replied. "Some professors don't even use it, and they let their students write whatever they want. Then, some of those students fail and end up taking my class, where I am restrictive about topics, and they pass. No, I didn't come up with the list, but I have added topics to it and have created my own expanded list over the years."
"...you mean you've restricted it more?" Daisy asked, again awed at what I was saying.
"Yeah," I replied, "I have, after some clever students found loopholes and wrote about topics that I hadn't expressly forbidden, but wrote on them just as badly and just as biased. The 'lowering of the drinking age' topic isn't on the master list, but I added it to mine after my first semester of teaching, since nobody -- and I mean nobody -- could make a valid, facts-and-research-based argument as to why it should happen. They write feeling-based argumentative essays instead of research-based ones. That's the problem with letting them write on a lot of those controversial, incendiary topics -- they'll try to make a passionate argument and will have nothing, no facts, statistics, studies, or academic sources to back them up. They'll say things like 'studies have shown...' and never say which studies, because they're writing that for effect and haven't actually looked up any to cite. That doesn't work in a college-level comp class."
I've also added animal testing (all they cite is the heavily-biased PETA), anything involving current military or political policies or ongoing wars, climate change, and anything involving any sort of racial or cultural stereotyping (in any form) to the list as well. The original "forbidden topics" list included only the big three: abortion, religion, and hatespeech-related topics, the latter of which bans papers such as "why Hitler was right" or other topics along those lines. Those things must be forbidden in my eyes; there's no way these students can write about them either ethically or academically. I once had a student, in all seriousness, ask me if he could write a paper on why abolishing slavery was a bad idea. Yes, these things come up. This is white-bread, bible-belt Kansas, and most of these kids come from tiny farming communities that are 100% white and always have been. They don't see much diversity at all.
Daisy just shook her head.
"I do give them a list of topics that students have used in the past to great effect," I told her. "I show them that I'm not totally restrictive. They can write on anything they want, but not those few forbidden things. I don't necessarily see anything wrong with it when making them write on something else will therefore make them think, and therefore will greatly raise their likelihood of passing the class."
This is true; on the back of the sheet of forbidden topics, I have twice as many examples of really good ones, topics which were original and unorthodox, as well as the tried-and-true ones. For example, I allow my students to write on the second amendment/gun control issues, I let them write on the death penalty, I let them write on the euthanasia/assisted suicide/"right to die" topic. I've had students write on the future of the space program and what should/shouldn't happen with it, and I've had students write on justification for the use of (or abolishment of) nuclear weapons. These kids are creative, and many times they are quite intelligent and can write intelligent arguments -- but until they prove that to me, or to the department, I don't and can't trust them or their skills any further than I could throw them.
When I told Daisy this, she asked "You allow them to write papers on gun control and the death penalty, but not abortion or religion? Aren't both of those just as controversial as the others?"
"Controversial, yes," I said, "but easily researchable and arguable without biased sources, the intrusion of religious thought or doctrine, and with a great many statistics and studies published and available for them to draw from in their arguments. That's the difference."
"People are going to be just as passionate about those things as the 'forbidden' ones," Daisy countered.
"Yes, they will, but again, they won't have the crutch of faulty, biased arguments to fall back on. If they choose not to find or use the reputable sources, it's on them."
I also let her know that my students have a much, much wider berth in being able to choose their topics in 101 than they'll ever get in 102 -- in 102, they are given a list of topics (in the old book, it was 20 different topics on various current events issues; I don't know how many it is now that they've updated the book) that they must choose from to write their paper -- any extraneous topic suggested is usually shot down, as the book's options are sufficient. I think being able to write about basically whatever they want in 101, with a few exceptions, is much better than being restricted to a set list in English 102.
When later describing what it was like to watch me teach to one of her closest friends, she summed it up in two words: "Very Kansas." Meaning conservative and restrictive based on the discussion we'd had earlier. She enjoyed seeing me teach and now understood how I always have command of the classroom, but of course, she disagreed with me on the whole forbidden topics thing. Everything else, of course, she found interesting, and said she could tell that I was a good instructor.
Again, I don't have to do the forbidden topics thing, but implementing it makes my classes easier -- both when it comes to grading and when it comes to helping my students to succeed. I don't like to give failing grades, and I tend to grade brutally hard on the 101 papers (because if they can't do well in 101, they have no chance in 102). By implementing that list and teaching them what both I and the university are looking for in their writing, I raise the bar...and they rise to meet it again and again, every semester. I've never had a student whine about not being able to write on one of those forbidden topics -- they understand and accept why that list exists, and don't question it.
"I would be a student you'd hate," Daisy said, smiling. "I'd be the one asking why I couldn't write on those things and I'd be challenging you on them at every turn."
"...and you'd fail my class if you didn't follow directions," I said flatly. "Rules and policies are there for a reason."
I don't play favorites. You're a good writer, you say? Prove it to me in your work and with your effort. If you want to impress me, write well on a difficult topic.
We stopped talking about teaching after a while. We had to. I didn't want to fight with her. I do see Daisy's points clearly, as I mentioned before, and I deeply respect those points. But she's also not been teaching English classes for years on end like I have.
Anyway.
We came home and again kicked on the AC; it was nearly 100 degrees on Thursday afternoon, and there was no way we could deal with that without the AC. When it's 100 outside, it's easily 95 upstairs, if not hotter, unless the AC is running. Right now it's 11PM, and it's still 84...outside. It's 95.9 in my room as I'm typing this.
We made a lunch, and I put the last Harry Potter movie on, as neither of us had seen it yey (despite the fact that it's been out for over two years). I've owned it on DVD since Black Friday either last year or the year before, when Walmart put it on their DVD deep-sale list, but it sat on my shelf forever and I never got around to watching it. I do this a lot with movies; I have all three of the Lord of the Rings movies as well, and they're all still in their plastic wrap, unopened. I've had them for years.
My week was over, and I was beginning to wind down from overdrive mode. I'd been running hardcore for five or six days at that point, and my body was less than happy about it. Despite the fact that I was very interested in the movie, about halfway through it I slunk down onto the couch behind Daisy and passed out. And I needed it. Part of it was because I'd just eaten, but a larger part of it was because we didn't have any plans for the rest of the day/night and because my week was over. My body was starting to go into cooldown mode, like an engine that had been overheated and needs to cool off before it can perform again. I needed rest in the worst way. While I'd slept a decent amount the night before, having not slept and having kept up the pace I'd kept for the past week, all of those lost hours of sleep and relaxation/decompression time were seriously beginning to catch up with me. Even I can't stay in overdrive indefinitely. So, I passed out for about 90 minutes or so. I only awoke when Daisy had finished the movie and had turned off the TV, and the lack of sound is what woke me.
"We can go downstairs and nap if you want, babe," she told me.
"No," I replied. "you can, if you want, but I can't. I won't get up."
One of the reasons I had purposely let myself fall asleep on the couch is because it's not comfortable at all, and because it's excruciatingly hot upstairs. That means I won't sleep deeply when I nap there because I cannot fully rest when I'm uncomfortable and hot. If I'd gone downstairs I would have passed out for many hours, and missed a lot of time that could have otherwise been spent with Daisy during one of the few visits we'll get to have together this semester. Napping on the couch is one of the very few ways I can force a nap to be a short "power nap" sort of scenario, because otherwise I sleep and sleep hard, always, when I go to sleep and desperately need it.
I had asked Daisy before what her departure plans were; as she goes back to work on Friday nights, it's not uncommon for her to come down on a Tuesday, stay until Thursday night, and then drive home in the later hours that night. Sometimes, as the case was this past week, she will stay until Friday morning or early afternoon, and then she'll get up, pack up, drive home and go to work a few hours after she gets back. Schedule-wise, they're both about the same to her, with the only difference being where she sleeps beforehand. If she leaves on Thursday night, she gets home in the middle of the night on Friday morning and sleeps her normal schedule at home before work. If she leaves on Friday, she does that sleeping here, and then drives up there before work. She's left on Thursdays before if she has plans with friends back home in Omaha or if I have a bunch of stuff to do over the weekend, for example. This time, she planned to leave on Friday morning, or barring that, sleep until noon on Friday and then head home, because she knew she wouldn't sleep before work anyway. This meant that our Thursday night was wide-open.
"There's football on tonight," I said. "We can cook the tacos and nachos and have a mini-football party with food and beer."
And that's what we did. We watched the Chiefs destroy the Packers -- destroy them so hard, especially in the second half, that the Packers released Vince Young from their roster afterwards, since they'd lost to arguably one of the worst teams in professional football. We went to bed almost immediately after the game was over, as it had since gotten so hot in the upstairs of the house that we couldn't stand it.
Here, finally, is where the story of my pain kicks in.
Somehow, in the course of the overnight while I was sleeping, I pulled a muscle on the left side of my chest. It was a muscle that somehow connected to a tendon or another muscle in my back and shoulder/shoulder blade area, and also extended not only into and around my lung/ribs, but into my tricep. I don't know what muscle this is, or why/how I pulled it in my sleep, but it just ached. Coughing/sneezing (because of my terrible allergies) was so painful. Moving my arm and torso in certain ways would trigger a spasm, which was also incredibly painful. Putting weight or pressure on it, such as to pull myself up or to lean against a wall or doorjamb, was excruciating.
And all of this happened while I was asleep. I didn't think I'd slept in any strange position, and I'd been fine when I went to bed. Tired, yes, but not in pain. The aching is what woke me up on Friday morning, at 6AM, and I came upstairs then because it was so uncomfortable. When I woke Daisy up around 11 or so (after she'd slept, again, for twelve hours) I told her about it, but didn't go into a lot of detail because I didn't want her to worry about me. I'm like a cat; I hide pain exceedingly well. Because it hurt when I coughed or breathed hard, I though that perhaps it was a lung infection that was causing all of my muscles around it to hurt/ache, and the word emphysema floated through my mind. I shook it off, I made her breakfast and helped her pack up all of her stuff, and kissed her goodbye when she left around 1PM or so.
I never thought until later that afternoon/evening that it was probably due to my muscles and body being exceedingly tired and fatigued from being in overdrive for a solid week. And, as the day went on, it got worse. I wouldn't even do anything; I'd be sitting still, and it would spasm. Hard. And it almost had me doubling over in shooting pain. By the time Daisy got home that afternoon and went to work that night, my entire upper body was on fire. I could barely stand up straight -- the muscles had felt like they'd locked up and the pain had spread to encompass most of my back, both shoulder blades, and both sides of my chest. This wasn't a simple pulled muscle or aching tendon at this point -- this was the upper half of my body trying to systematically shut down on me, muscles locking up and refusing to move without pain. Everything was going stiff. Every time I walked around the house or moved too quickly, everything would spasm, and I'd be in so much pain that I was shaking. I'd eaten, I'd kept myself hydrated, but I knew the heat (over 100 on Friday) was probably contributing to it as well. I sent Daisy a message telling her that I was still in a lot of muscle aches/pain and that I was going to bed early. This was around 8:30 on Friday night.
As my allergies were killing me and because I was in pain, I took a pair of sinus congestion and pain pills, the ones that have Tylenol in them in addition to the decongestants, because this time I truly needed both drugs. When I went to bed, I was trembling because of the process it took for me to actually lay down flat on the mattress and get into a comfortable position to sleep. Even laying down and not moving, every few minutes the muscles would contract and spasm hard, making me involuntarily tense up and hurt more. If you've ever had a knot in your calf muscles, that involuntary cramp in the night that wakes you from a dead sleep in horrible pain and won't go away until you straighten out those muscles by pointing your toes up toward your knee, imagine that -- but imagine it throughout your entire chest and shoulder blades, and imagine it happening every five minutes or so. That's what it was like.
I don't know what happened in the night, but when my body told me to go to bed because of the pain, I did, and in the overnight hours, while I slept, my body and mindset finally turned off overdrive mode. I had a long weekend ahead of me with only a little work to take care of, and Daisy was gone; finally, my unconscious/subconscious mind could turn off, and inwardly I knew I could rest and recuperate. I slept. I slept hard. Pete threw up on the bed six inches from my head, and I didn't even wake up for it. That's how out I was. What I do know is that when I awakened yesterday morning, 95% of the pain was gone -- and by yesterday afternoon, it was completely gone without a trace.
Honestly, I think it was my body telling me that it was time to end overdrive, that I could not go on any longer at the pace I was going with as little sleep as I was getting and as little food as I'd been eating. Yes, I'd had that big meal on Thursday night, but as I mentioned in my previous post, that was really the only true meal I'd had all week that wasn't just a quick sandwich or snack. Daisy and I both attempted to eat regularly during her visit, but I didn't eat a lot otherwise. My sleep cycles were seriously thrown off, and I had been out-and-about a lot more than normal, and since she was here I was smoking a lot less and drinking a lot less coffee, my fuels for overdrive. It was like running out of gas; the car just stops after a while of driving on nothing but fumes.
Regardless, I am out of that mode now, and am feeling back to normal. I've spent the majority of my long weekend trying to decompress and recover, sleep normal hours and take care of tasks at my own pace. It's also good that I will start my week softly, with my easy day, and I have a little more recuperation time because of the Labor Day holiday tomorrow. This morning, I got up at 10 and have done absolutely nothing of consequence all day long -- I played a video game and made coffee. Between now and Tuesday I have to highlight a few sections to teach in my 101 textbook and go to Walmart to get cigarettes and coolant for the car, but I really have nothing else major to do. Daisy is working a weird schedule tonight because of the holiday, and I'll probably be going to bed again rather early to maximize the amount of sleep I can get. It's not as hot today -- it's barely 80 right now and it's cloudy/gray for the first time in two weeks. It may rain/storm this afternoon, which would be incredibly welcome after the scorching, burning heat we've had.
I won't have to be in overdrive again for a while; my students don't turn in their first papers until the last week of this month, and I won't start teaching my 210 class until October 10. I've even made up all my handouts and other lessons I need to cover this week, and my outfits for teaching have already been laid out and readied for the week as well. Today and tomorrow will be total, sit-around-in-my-underwear relaxation days.
And I need those days. I so, so need them.
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