I ATEN'T DEAD. Mostly.
Ho, hum. *brushes cobwebs off journal and carefully relocates spiders*. I appear to have, um, disappeared for six months or so, possibly to indulge in a mid-life crisis as the big 50 rolled around, or possibly that's just coincidental. At any rate, my somewhat belated New Year's Resolution is to try and blog again, on the usual grounds that it's good for me and takes me the fuck out of myself, which may be necessary as my pestilent hell-job pushes me further and further into my shell, socially speaking. Turns out emotional energy is both (a) necessary for socialising, and (b) routinely swallowed up by narcissistic student vampires, self-absorbed academics and other occupational hazards of the academic life. Ho, hum.
I am doubly resolved upon journalling as my emotional support found family, namely jo&stv, have relocated with commendable efficiency to New Zealand, leaving me with something of a void to fill. New Zealand appears to be cool and green and sane and small, and thus diametrically opposed to almost all the aspects of South Africa in general and Cape Town in particular which are most getting up my nose at the moment, which is most of them, so I am jealous and more than slightly resolved to try and follow them if humanly possible.
Which will happen, alas, only when the current horrors of the registration/orientation season have abated somewhat, i.e. in about three weeks' time. Yesterday's first day of registration, happening simultaneously with the last day of the orientation programme, necessitated an 11-hour day which started with a batch of emails from academics who, having ignored my increasingly frantic pleas for three weeks, chose the morning of the actual presentations to inform me they refused to be recorded while speaking, thus screwing nearly terminally with a careful programme of student access. It continued with venue confusion, non-appearing presenters, handbook errors, and shoes which hurt my feet increasingly as the day's scurrying around progressed. It ended on a spectacularly low note when, at 5.30 in the evening, an hour after the university admin offices have officially closed, a very large male student followed me into my deserted and darkened offices, demanded, despite my protestations of complete exhaustion, that I make some complicated curriculum checks to sign a form for him, ignored my refusal and my request for him to email me the details so I could do the checking over the weekend, ignored four separate requests for him to leave my office, and loomed in the doorway refusing to leave until I succumbed to a panic attack. At which point, as I crouched on the floor shaking, hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably, he told me that my behaviour was unacceptable and he would inform management, and left to complain about me to the Dean, who he cornered in the foyer as she was leaving and ranted at for half an hour, blocking the building exit so I couldn't leave without passing him. I eventually staggered home in, shall we say, something of a state, and have spent the day mostly not moving from the sofa and aching in every muscle. I am hoping that the whole debacle at least means this reg season can only improve.
So. I am not at all sure if anyone is still reading such dreadfully retro and passé things as blogs, but I'm back and shall try to remain so. Watch this space.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/972429.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I am doubly resolved upon journalling as my emotional support found family, namely jo&stv, have relocated with commendable efficiency to New Zealand, leaving me with something of a void to fill. New Zealand appears to be cool and green and sane and small, and thus diametrically opposed to almost all the aspects of South Africa in general and Cape Town in particular which are most getting up my nose at the moment, which is most of them, so I am jealous and more than slightly resolved to try and follow them if humanly possible.
Which will happen, alas, only when the current horrors of the registration/orientation season have abated somewhat, i.e. in about three weeks' time. Yesterday's first day of registration, happening simultaneously with the last day of the orientation programme, necessitated an 11-hour day which started with a batch of emails from academics who, having ignored my increasingly frantic pleas for three weeks, chose the morning of the actual presentations to inform me they refused to be recorded while speaking, thus screwing nearly terminally with a careful programme of student access. It continued with venue confusion, non-appearing presenters, handbook errors, and shoes which hurt my feet increasingly as the day's scurrying around progressed. It ended on a spectacularly low note when, at 5.30 in the evening, an hour after the university admin offices have officially closed, a very large male student followed me into my deserted and darkened offices, demanded, despite my protestations of complete exhaustion, that I make some complicated curriculum checks to sign a form for him, ignored my refusal and my request for him to email me the details so I could do the checking over the weekend, ignored four separate requests for him to leave my office, and loomed in the doorway refusing to leave until I succumbed to a panic attack. At which point, as I crouched on the floor shaking, hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably, he told me that my behaviour was unacceptable and he would inform management, and left to complain about me to the Dean, who he cornered in the foyer as she was leaving and ranted at for half an hour, blocking the building exit so I couldn't leave without passing him. I eventually staggered home in, shall we say, something of a state, and have spent the day mostly not moving from the sofa and aching in every muscle. I am hoping that the whole debacle at least means this reg season can only improve.
So. I am not at all sure if anyone is still reading such dreadfully retro and passé things as blogs, but I'm back and shall try to remain so. Watch this space.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/972429.html. Please comment there using OpenID.