Day 11: total perspective vortex
I checked my work calendar yesterday to see what Zoom meeting joys are lined up for me this week (only one meeting so far, although it's a particularly annoying university-level one), and realised that this coming weekend is Easter. Easter under current circumstances is peculiarly meaningless: to one of my completely irreligious bent it's just a four-day weekend, and these days every day feels like weekend, when not actually in Zoom meetings. But it made me realise how completely the epidemic has reshaped the flow of daily life, because usually I anticipate the extra days off weeks in advance, and this time it's crept up on me completely.
My ten days of leave, two weeks before this all started, were very carefully chosen to occupy a slot in the semester where I had no curriculum change deadlines and could take the necessary post-reg recovery space as early as possible. And I deliberately don't time the leave over the 10-day vac or the Easter weekend, because I can use those to artifically extend my rest period. The vac is very quiet, traffic is low and it's not exhausting to drive to work, and with no students around there's not much to do and it's all very peaceful and reasonably restful. And then Easter hits, giving me a succession of 4-day weeks, which are very good for the fatigue. So if I'm clever I can have 10 days of leave, quiet vac week, 4-day week, 4-day week, and then, because this is SA and public holidays R Us, a 5-day and then a 4-day week because Freedom Day on the 27th. April is a very light month. It needs to be, given how exhausted I am after the reg/orientation/change of curriculum three-punch.
And none of it matters now. All that calculation and planning are meaningless, because I'm at home constantly. It's all just... fallen away. As has, in fact, the urgency and stress around finding a temp receptionist in my unit, and browbeating the staffing committee into financing a permanent one. Because no students, therefore no continuous demands for my attention, and even if there were, I'm not in office so they can't get at me. There's no point in job hunting, because all the places I want a new job have closed their borders. It really does recontextualise one's normal worries to have (a) the giant ones replace it (will I get the virus? will thousands die? will society collapse?), and (b) quiet days at home in which to come to terms with all this.
And it still feels wrong to be finding positives. Possibly a good thing this afternoon's meeting will be the opposite of enjoyable, apparently I am feeling the need for the flesh to be mortified.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/977533.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
My ten days of leave, two weeks before this all started, were very carefully chosen to occupy a slot in the semester where I had no curriculum change deadlines and could take the necessary post-reg recovery space as early as possible. And I deliberately don't time the leave over the 10-day vac or the Easter weekend, because I can use those to artifically extend my rest period. The vac is very quiet, traffic is low and it's not exhausting to drive to work, and with no students around there's not much to do and it's all very peaceful and reasonably restful. And then Easter hits, giving me a succession of 4-day weeks, which are very good for the fatigue. So if I'm clever I can have 10 days of leave, quiet vac week, 4-day week, 4-day week, and then, because this is SA and public holidays R Us, a 5-day and then a 4-day week because Freedom Day on the 27th. April is a very light month. It needs to be, given how exhausted I am after the reg/orientation/change of curriculum three-punch.
And none of it matters now. All that calculation and planning are meaningless, because I'm at home constantly. It's all just... fallen away. As has, in fact, the urgency and stress around finding a temp receptionist in my unit, and browbeating the staffing committee into financing a permanent one. Because no students, therefore no continuous demands for my attention, and even if there were, I'm not in office so they can't get at me. There's no point in job hunting, because all the places I want a new job have closed their borders. It really does recontextualise one's normal worries to have (a) the giant ones replace it (will I get the virus? will thousands die? will society collapse?), and (b) quiet days at home in which to come to terms with all this.
And it still feels wrong to be finding positives. Possibly a good thing this afternoon's meeting will be the opposite of enjoyable, apparently I am feeling the need for the flesh to be mortified.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/977533.html. Please comment there using OpenID.