A Crazy Cat's Life

This month has been rather...well...sucky. Too much has been going on and not all of it good. To start off with, my job has turned into a really sucky mess (that'll be the "word of the day" today). I'm forced to move into a new office so they could make room for all the new tenure faculty coming in. The way it was explained to me was that I am not worth anything and that my desk in the office with the nice window has to go to "real" faculty. While those were not the exact words used, the tone was. My new office? In the bottom of the science building (got to love those natural gas fumes :P), no window, and cinderblock walls. What's better? I get to share it with seven other people. How they fit eight desks, eight filing cabinets, and a small conference table in this room is beyond me. On top of that, it's off the noisiest hallway in the entire fucking campus. Joy. I'll be investing in a good set of noise-canceling headphones in the next...

I finally got word on what's happening to me in the fall. I'll be coming back as a lecturer, which means full time pay and health insurance. However, it was made very clear to me that it will only be for one semester (to cover a colleague who is on sabbatical). Financially it is good news but at the same time it is frustrating. I'll be teaching six classes and working at the library. I have to keep my library job as well since I'll have to rely on that in the new year. All of this plus grad school. I'll be a fried kitty before December rolls along. All of this is making me seriously considering going away for a vacation. We'll have the money (at least in the short term) to do that. I really want to go to Cape Cod but I'll have to convince the husband to agree to it. He wants to do a "staycation" but I need to get away in order to relax. Heck, I even found a nice cottage right near the beach for a decent price in August. Now I just have t...

Things have just been too hectic. My teaching job has taken an interesting turn. The department finally did find a Latin American specialist which means my job is gone. There's a slight chance they could retain me for one semester while a colleague is on sabbatical but that's it. It looks like I'll be going back to adjuncting sooner rather than later. The one problem with a one semester gig is that I have to keep my second job as well. Plus, to justify keeping me on for a semester, my boss wants to give me six classes instead of five. All that and grad classes. Well, if this happens I'll just be taking one grad class. I'm already fried. I don't need to get crispy. Speaking of grad classes, so far so good in my forensic psychology class. I'm getting A's so far though I only got a 5.5 out of 6 on the last paper. Of course I'm not happy I got a 6. I'm a perfectionist in certain regards. I'm starting to think I took one of the hardest...

I asked my students to read an excerpt from Herodotus' The Histories about the Persian invasion of Greece. When asked what were the special attributes that the Greeks had to help them to resist and eventually defeat the Persians, one student wrote this: "One attribute of the Greeks is that they comb their hair whenever that are about to risk their lives" Um OK. It seems that good hair helped them defeat the Persians. Good to know. ROFLMAO

The result of the tenure line job search at my college? The person that they wanted to hire took a job at a four-year school. Why am I not surprised?