rot

It's October, the leaves are falling, pumpkins and cider are being sold on nearly every corner, and it's going to be in the mid eighties for the next four days. That's just fucked up.

The only thing keeping the leaf mold at a less than hideous level is the fact that we've been in drought conditions for about the last two months (or more).

Combined with the not unexpected but still miserable Fall sniffling, sneezing, hacking cold, I am not feeling terribly spry today. I'm also irritated with myself that my students are going to get about 2/3s of the lecture I wanted to give them and only about 1/4 of the lecture I'm supposed to give them.

That latter part isn't the crucial problem since what I'm supposed to give them is based on materials and a course structure which was outdated 5 years ago when it made its way into a series of computer files. That was the kiss of death for hopes of ever updating the materials to reflect the changes to the course curriculum because now the current poopapotamus and past poopapotami have dutifully copied and distributed this out of date material, semester after semester to grads desperately in need of teaching materials or even crutches.

Thus, the badly fitting material and structure has been perpetuated through the years, like some dysfunctional family tradition. Like the Nutcracker tradition my mother foisted on us each year for some period of my adolescence. It started with a drive into Boston on a weekend evening, always sure to get the clotting factor and blood pressure up. Our dad would navigate the minivan around narrow Boston streets, hunting in what seemed like a never ending loop which wove in and out of what used to be Chinatown and the Combat Zone, to Roxbury and skirting South Station. It looks like a small area on the map, but you drive it in the snow during rush hour on a Friday night with a drunk and three sulry and/or scared teens in the back. It's not a fun trip.

As with the Nutcracker, at some point you just have to say "Enough!" This is about where I'm at with teaching these labs. It's not that I don't care. I care quite a bit. I just don't care to "teach" my students by the book (or rather, by the CD) if the book no longer fits.

It does mean more work for me in terms of coming up with material though, and that's where we get into the 2/3 of what I wanted to give them today. Yesterday's fever sort of broke up my work time a bit more than I had anticipated and so my plan to cover this, that, AND the other thing had to be pared down at about 1 AM to just this and that.

If I had just stuck to the CD, I'd be able to give the students 100% of a lecture which is largely contextually useless, and still manage to have time for important activities like being seen dragging my sick, sniffling carcass through the hallways. This is very important in grad school, to be seen that is. If you can manage to be seen by a stodgey old paternalistic faculty member while you are visibly and indeed valiantly choking down a mouthful of your own vomit or carrying on with a two hour nonstop lecture despite looking like you could have played an extra in Shaun of the Dead, then you win.
At least for that moment.
At least in my department you do.

My advisor recently hurt herself. She doesn't know how. She just woke up in pain. It was so bad and enduring that she was limping quite severely all around the building last week. I wasn't feeling bad that day so when she said she was going to get lunch, I offered to get it for her.
"No, I'll get it. It's probably good for me to walk..." she said hobbling off. In fact, it is NOT good to use a part of your body which you very recently injured. The standard first aid which I honestly thought most people knew is Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. She was doing none of those.

It's been almost two weeks and she's lost work time, had to go home early and didn't even make it in on Monday, as a result of the pain not subsiding. But damn, she sure looked committed hobbling around campus, getting her own lunch. When she said it was probably good for her to walk on a joint which was so fucked that it was sore to touch, I wonder now if she meant good for her in a spiritual, pilgrim wearing a hair shirt sense....

Today I'm breaking my "don't come to class sick" rule. Because they have a project deadline coming up, and because although I've made up my mind to leave, I don't want to blow off my teaching responsibility. But Teaching in this state, it's like 80 degree weather in October. It just ain't right.