Headaches, Part II

It's cold and quiet today in Kansas, and it's spitting snow again. Not a lot, but some. Flurries, really.

After consideration and discussion with Daisy last night about my paycheck stuff, I'll more than likely try the Western Union or MoneyGram route first to see if I can get it into my bank account. If any snafus pop up or for some reason I can't do that, I'll cash it, give it to her, and she said she'd wire it to me once she got back home after our Valentine's Day together...despite how needlessly antiquated and stupid that process apparently is at her bank(s) of choice. I really want to avoid mailing it home for my parents to deposit if at all possible -- while yes, of course, I trust them, it's a lot of money to just stick in the mail and hope it arrives safely, and it takes way too long to get there/get deposited. Daisy's wire transfer she sent me yesterday, in comparison, was in my bank account last night.

I had to leave the house today, sadly -- there are a lot of little things I need to do this weekend before Daisy comes down on Wednesday, and doing my shopping was one of them. It couldn't wait, as I was completely out of cigarettes, which is one of the few triggers that will make me leave the house whether I want to or not. I did need and get other stuff too, of course, but I'm still on a budget -- Daisy's money goes straight to my bills, which I'll stick in the mail on Monday. All of the stuff I get while shopping still goes on the Discover card until I can get a few paychecks in the bank, all bills are paid, and I actually have a little spare money.

Anyway.

In other news, I mentioned (briefly) a few weeks ago that Daisy's original engagement ring, when she got it resized shortly after our engagement, weakened the metal on the back of the ring (it cracked), and shortly after I returned home from Christmas in Omaha, that metal completely wore out and just broke in two. Since then, she's been wearing a (very cheap) "wedding ring" sort of ring that I found on Amazon as a "practice" wedding ring for her, of sorts, so she could see what the style looked and felt like without either of us needing to spend a ton of money on it yet. I told her I would get another engagement ring for her for Valentine's Day, one which wouldn't need to be resized and wouldn't crack or break.

However, once all of this payroll stuff happened -- throwing my finances into absolute havoc -- that plan, while still in my head, got sort of pushed to the wayside in favor of survival. It's not like I could justify buying another engagement ring for her when she herself has to wire me money just so I can pay my bills this month. Yes, of course, I have my credit cards -- one of which has a huge limit on it and I've been living on that limit -- but with every monetary setback I've had since basically the first day of classes compounding on one another, and with the stresses that come with those setbacks, my mind has sort of been on other things, you know?

Last night, we talked about it a bit. She'd been looking at rings online in different styles and metals ever since the first one broke -- which, of course, I am ashamed of, even though she loved that ring -- and none of them have been anywhere near close to our price range. Even more infuriating? None of them we could find came in size 11, which is Daisy's size. It's also my size, ironically enough. Yeah, I have fairly small hands. Go figure. If they did come in her size, they were hundreds of dollars higher than either of us could afford right now.

Now, with the semester starting, I have to admit I've been a bit lax on the replacement-ring-shopping, what with the snow and the three different classes I have to lesson-plan for again and all of the paycheck stuff. Yes, as I said, it was on my mind...with a million other things that took precedence first. Obviously, and understandably so, this didn't make Daisy that happy. She'd asked me to do one thing -- one thing -- and that was to see if I could get her a replacement ring before Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day isn't just that holiday alone; it's the anniversary of our engagement. Even I understand that to celebrate the anniversary of our engagement without an actual ring on Daisy's finger is, for lack of a better phrase, fucking depressing. And, additionally, a failing on my part because I didn't get one that would "hold up" in the first place, apparently.

Mind you, I spent a lot of time looking for Daisy's original ring. I wanted something simple, yet elegant. I wanted something unusual, but classy, something that was immediately recognizable as an engagement ring without being gaudy or goofy-looking on her finger. I wanted to find something that she'd actually wear and enjoy. And I did, obviously, and she loved it. It was just a little too small for her to wear comfortably all day long every day, which is what led to its resizing and breakage. I didn't spend a lot on it, mainly because I knew money wasn't important to her for it. My own wedding ring, which I bought a few months later, is tungsten carbide (I think) and was literally pennies.

So, with a guilty conscience, last night I did some searching for "engagement ring size 11." No, seriously, that's what I searched for. And I found her a new one. A different one. I paid about 5X what I paid for the original one, but still, I found her one, ordered it with the Discover card (of course), and it should hopefully arrive while or before she's here this coming week for Valentine's Day. It's nice. I like it. It's a different metal, different stones, and it's in her size. 

I did not ask her for advice on it, and I did not show it to her. It's my job to pick it out, and my job to get it and give it to her. Plus, since it really doesn't look a lot like the original ring (though there are a few similarities), the last thing I wanted to hear was "eww, no, I don't like that one, cancel the order." That would've probably angered me.

What can I say? I'm particular about some things.

Anyway, I hope she likes it. I don't really have any doubts that she will, but still. It'll sort of be like a replay of last year if it arrives on time, what with me giving her a ring and all.

The ring isn't the only thing I've gotten for her, of course -- while out shopping at Walmart this afternoon (as I still have not apparently learned my lesson not to go shopping on Saturday afternoons) I did find one or two other little things, but they are, indeed, little. And they're not really anything to write home about yet. I've scaled way back on gift-giving holidays this year because, well, I'm already in enough credit card debt.

Her plan is to come down on Wednesday night, get here around the time I get home from teaching my 210 class, and then we'll have a quick dinner before I have to go to bed in order to be able to get up and go teach my 102 class in the morning (which she'll sleep through). My schedule's already a little different next week anyway, what with being on main campus all day long on Tuesday for my students' "library day" and needing to figure out what to do with my paycheck once I pick it up.

The other big news that came down the pipeline yesterday is that our main department administrator resigned.

No, not the one who was working with me on the payroll stuff. We have two. Let me explain.

The department is run, really, and run well, by two different administrators, each with different duties and responsibilities. They are the eyes and the ears of that institution, they are the ones who run the day-to-day operations of the entire department, taking care of basically anything and everything that needs to be done. In this sense, they have more hands-on power and responsibility than the various directors of the different programs within the department, or even the department chair. If there's a problem that's not "students-in-classroom" related, mentioning it to one of these two administrators is basically the way to get it solved -- sometimes within a few minutes or a few clicks of a mouse. Both of them (well, until yesterday, anyway) have been working at the university since before most of the grad students (and some faculty/staff) were born.

As I said, there were two. One of them, the one who I've been working with recently, deals with payroll and operations issues, and everything that entails -- meaning stuff like making sure our paychecks are scheduled properly, making sure our employee status/benefits are in good shape, and working all the way down to stuff like making sure the copy machine is working and issuing keys to faculty members. The other, the one who resigned, does the scheduling of classes for the department (big, big job there) for not only ALL of the instructors, but for the sections, rooms, and buildings, and takes care of the other departmental stuff along those lines, such as making sure we have books on hand for everyone to teach with and the like.

I am not giving either of them enough credit for everything they do here with my simple words, because their jobs are extremely hectic and multifaceted, encompassing probably hundreds of things I've failed to mention, and because my words alone simply aren't sufficient to really explain how much both of them really do for all of us working in that department (or how much we appreciate them). Having one of them leave is going to have a devastating impact on the department in the short term, and possibly even into the long term, until someone else is hired and learns all the ropes. It's not an easy job. I have great respect for both of those administrators for what they do and how well they do it. Anytime I've ever needed something worked on, or anytime I've had any sort of problem that only they could fix...they've taken care of it quickly and without incident -- even stuff like my payroll over these past two weeks. That was taken care of in a matter of an hour or so; it's the payroll department who we were waiting on in that situation, not anybody on our end.

Look, I don't know where I'll be or what I'll be doing after May -- it's much the same situation I was in last summer. Unless I get hired on at the university in a different capacity with a different title and pay grade (which is still a distinct possibility), Daisy and I will more than likely relocate me, my stuff, and the cats up to Omaha, where we'll have an emotional support network of her/our friends and family, and many more job opportunities for me in various fields both inside and outside of academia. My point is that after this semester, I may no longer be involved with this department and this university, so all of these shake-ups may not affect me that much. But, right now, there's a 50/50 shot that Kansas will remain my/our home, and being a university professor may remain my job. Regardless of what happens, it's still my job for the next three months, and anything that happens in that department in the interim before finals week in May will affect me, especially as the department is between student assistants right now. In the almost five years I've worked there, we've averaged about one student assistant a year. GTAs occasionally fill in and help out when they can, paid or unpaid, because all of us care about how the department runs -- but usually, we get an undergrad on workstudy, and they work for a semester or two before they're gone and we have to start all over with someone else. And the bigger issue here is that no student assistant can fill the shoes of the administrator who just resigned; they can only fill in the gaps, sort the mail, make copies, answer phones, etc. The administrator position, again, is a hard job with a lot of complicated work involved, especially when it comes to scheduling all of the classes. It is because of that administrator that I got the classes I needed both last semester and this semester, and that I got them during times which worked for me.

With said administrator gone, all of the department's work now falls on the remaining administrator, the one I've been working with on payroll -- who will now be forced to shoulder, effectively, two jobs when her own job is hard and stressful enough. I can't imagine the department is going to be a nice place to be on Monday once everyone returns. I feel for her; I truly do. Both of those ladies have busted their asses for us over the years, through everything. We've had three different department chairs since I've been there, we've had nearly 100 GTAs come and go, the department has hired at least five or six new professors and has seen close to the same number retire (or, in some cases, die). That's just in the span of a little less than five years, folks. And that's just personnel stuff, not curriculum stuff. I'm really at a loss, honestly, as to the situation right now, and clueless at the moment as to how much things will change in the department in the near future. I'll just have to wait and see.

The storm system predicted a few days ago is coming in, though it's pretty weak. We have the possibility to receive up to two more inches of snow between now and Monday night. At this point, that's just adding insult to injury -- the roads here still aren't clear, not even five days after Nika rolled through. In fact, the neighborhood streets almost seem worse, and all of the streets in town except for the main drag are exactly the same, as if nothing's changed, as they were on Thursday morning when I went to class. Yes, you'll still slide through stop signs if you're unprepared and aren't going slow enough. No, on 90% of the secondary streets (not the residential streets, but the secondary streets) you still can't see pavement. It's fucking pathetic that nothing else at all has been done, not even a second plowing or brine treatment, in the past two days. The main drag in Newton is clear and was just wet today when I was out, and I hope that by the time I go back down to campus on Tuesday, the interstate will be the same.

Other than that, nothing's really going on. Tomorrow I'll be doing my school stuff and around-the-house important stuff, such as paying my bills and printing out handouts for this week's classes. I don't plan to get up until the afternoon, because it's not like there's anything absolutely pressing I have to do in the meantime. Daisy's working, so she'll be asleep all day anyway. As for the cats, the two girls are already in bed waiting on me, and Pete is sitting here looking at me, waiting on me to go downstairs as well.

I will update you, of course, on any future happenings or weather events. As for now, the car's in the garage, I have food, I don't have to leave the house until Tuesday morning, the cats are waiting on me to go to sleep with them, and I'm tired. Goodnight, folks.