Some Beans

So much depends on the pretty blue bowl in the avocado sink.

Now that I've quit my job (oh did I tell you? I quit.), I'm determined to spend more time cooking. Not that I haven't been cooking up until now, but have I been making beans and currys and katsups from scratch? I have not.

In other news, why do I feel guilty for leaving a job that has not paid me in over two months, and as far as I can tell can't pay me, ever again? Hm.

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

So I'm on campus today, finishing up all my end of semester work and enjoying the campus quiet. It's been, to say the least, an odd semester. And it's an odd feeling, too, going into winter break, not knowing when (and if) we'll be paid or what sort of situation we'll be coming back to.

Frankly, I've been in a bit of a funk. When I woke up this morning, I lay in bed staring at the clock long after I should have been up and on my way in to school. "I'm depressed," I realized, in an oddly narrative moment of clarity. "This whole thing is really depressing."

Anyway, so I got up and came to school, and spent a rewarding morning typing up a letter of reccomendation for one of my favorite students. Then, when she stopped by to pick it up, she gave me a present:



And if I didn't know it already, it's great to be reminded: teaching is the best job, ever. Um, I mean, best job ever, teaching is.

Rabbit, rabbit

Happy November, everyone!

So, new month, new rules. To start with, this is so last month:



Word is, we're getting paid tomorrow. And the Friday after. And so on, forever and ever, until our great-grandkids finally suck dry the teat of institutional solvency.

Okay, maybe not. But we're at least getting paid tomorrow, and should be paid only five days late for the payperiod after that.

It's been a rough couple weeks, though, I gotta say. Not so much the financial strain (though my bank account, like many of my coworkers, is currently overdrawn due to automatic payments going through post-non-payday). Rather, it's the emotional impact of not getting paid that continues to sting. I'd never realized what a capitalist I am before, but jeez. Not getting paid casts such a pall over my workday.

Anyway. Here's to new months! New beginnings! New posts! Paychecks!

Welp

We still haven't been paid. Let me repeat that: No one at the school where I work has been paid for over a week (unless there's a secret cadre of elites I'm not aware of, rolling around in secret rooms full of money as I type). There's even some indication that there might not be a regular payroll until December 3rd (just in time for mom's birthday!).

So, my question is, how much longer to we keep on keepin' on? At what point does "I'm still here for the students" become "I'm giving the students a false sense of stability by staying"?

I feel irresponsible talking about this in so pubic a forum, but at what point does stiff-upper-lipping cease being useful and start being harmful? At what point can we just shut the doors and start mourning?

*Just to be clear: it's been a week since payday came and went. It's been more than four weeks since we were last paid.

Priorities

Lately I've been having trouble making it in to work on time. Even though it's just a thirty minute walk, even though I don't have to be there until ten. Lately I keep hitting the snooze button til 9:15, and then I lie in bed for another ten or fifteen minutes, stretching my fingers and toes and staring out the window, listening to the Writer's Almanac on NPR.

There are two busses I can take on these late-sleeper mornings: the J and the 22. The 22 drops me off in the heart of the Mission, 2 blocks up a busy, grouchy, pee-smelling street from where I work. Last week, I spent the entire 10-minute ride trying not to listen to the mind-numbingly vile coversation. I don't really like the 22 right now. The other bus, the J (really an above ground train) drops me three blocks away from work, four blocks if I opt for the scenic route, as I did this morning. It's worth the extra five minutes.


(photo taken on my new pink cell phone)

The train drops me in the upper corner of Dolores Park. Most mornings it and the city are encased in a mochi-skin of fog, and some days there's a great dane gallumphing around in the mist, looking for all the world like some mythic beastie.

It's been a rough month here at work. Our paychecks are a week late as of today, with no word on when we can expect them. Students are still waiting for their financial aid awards. Everyone is tense, pinched and anxious and fragile. And there's so much work to be done.

Anyway. It's my lunch break now. I'm off to sit in the park.

Ugh.

What a day. I probably shouldn't go into detail for fear of being dooced, but here I am, sitting at a desk awash with papers, wondering how it got to be 7:30 and what ever happened to that lunch break I meant to take.

Not Good at the Busy

Oh, I am just not good* at being busy. This semester I'm working full time in addition to teaching a class -- that's 43 hours out of the week that I have to be someplace and be working, never mind the unstructured class prep hours I need to work on top of that.

Now, technically, there are enough hours in the day to get everything done. But my brain just can't stay in work mode long enough to make it happen. I keep napping on Saturdays, or sinking into a novel for just a minute, only to look up and realize hours have passed.

This morning, walking to work, I kept looking longingly into coffee shops, at people sitting in the corner with a notebook and their coffee, at teachers reading stacks of papers and hipsters with their dork-glasses and laptops. O, for an unstructured day!



*I started this post a few minutes ago, was called away, and came back to an entry that said "Oh, I am just not god". What an awesome excuse for not getting stuff done. Thanks, id!