hello again
so, i know i haven't posted in a year. wow. a year. but it occurred to me last night that i need to stop making my life all about my work. i need to reconnect with old friends.
i hung out with an old friend from SC last week, which of course reminded me of chinese food with sara1221. and i went to dinner with paul last week and saw jules, which reminded me of all my old friends at tech.
new orleans for the 4cs. it was incredible! until last week, san fran was my favorite city in the US. but good god... all the music, and good food, and getting to see old friends, and walking the neighborhoods, and dancing (whew did i dance my butt off!)... it was awesome.
for those of you who aren't married, who don't have the significant other, and are heading into this teaching-at-a-university gig, it's pretty lonely stuff. i mean, i knew i was lonely, but i didn't realize how much until i went to New Orleans and got to hang out with people i love for 4 days.
i don't know. i think part of it is that the people you interact with most are your students. and you know, you can only get so close to them. you only wanna get but so close to them. b/c they're young, and scared, and looking to you, not for friendship really, but for guidance. and your colleagues are as buried in grading as you are. so, you only see them at meetings and in hurried conversations in the hallways (usually about meetings). and you can't go out drinking, like you used to, to meet people, b/c your students are all out. so, you try other stuff -- exercise classes, etc -- but they're hard to do b/c your work is so time consuming, and by the time you get to be my age, most of the people my age are already married... already have lives... and aren't really interested in or just can't swing (with their spouse and kids and work, etc) anything more than a dinner once a month.
sounds pathetic, now that i look back over this. but i can't really complain. i paid for this life... many times over. and there's no knocking this job: being able to talk books and writing, 2 things i love more than most anything else (except travel, which i get to do alot with this job, too), for a living. but, as my old asshole prof used to say... it has it's costs... it has it's costs...
so, tell me about your lives. i want to live vicariously through you. :)
i hung out with an old friend from SC last week, which of course reminded me of chinese food with sara1221. and i went to dinner with paul last week and saw jules, which reminded me of all my old friends at tech.
new orleans for the 4cs. it was incredible! until last week, san fran was my favorite city in the US. but good god... all the music, and good food, and getting to see old friends, and walking the neighborhoods, and dancing (whew did i dance my butt off!)... it was awesome.
for those of you who aren't married, who don't have the significant other, and are heading into this teaching-at-a-university gig, it's pretty lonely stuff. i mean, i knew i was lonely, but i didn't realize how much until i went to New Orleans and got to hang out with people i love for 4 days.
i don't know. i think part of it is that the people you interact with most are your students. and you know, you can only get so close to them. you only wanna get but so close to them. b/c they're young, and scared, and looking to you, not for friendship really, but for guidance. and your colleagues are as buried in grading as you are. so, you only see them at meetings and in hurried conversations in the hallways (usually about meetings). and you can't go out drinking, like you used to, to meet people, b/c your students are all out. so, you try other stuff -- exercise classes, etc -- but they're hard to do b/c your work is so time consuming, and by the time you get to be my age, most of the people my age are already married... already have lives... and aren't really interested in or just can't swing (with their spouse and kids and work, etc) anything more than a dinner once a month.
sounds pathetic, now that i look back over this. but i can't really complain. i paid for this life... many times over. and there's no knocking this job: being able to talk books and writing, 2 things i love more than most anything else (except travel, which i get to do alot with this job, too), for a living. but, as my old asshole prof used to say... it has it's costs... it has it's costs...
so, tell me about your lives. i want to live vicariously through you. :)