Whoof ... but with gratitude

I haven't been here very long--got in around 11:30, I think, and it's now almost 4--but my brain feels like I've been at this for millennia. I've done a little more "dust bunny" kind of work, creating the versions of my syllabi that I use to keep myself organized (or sort of organized anyway) during the semester, printing out copies of the articles I gathered for the SF students to use in their second essays, that sort of thing. But I also realized that I have a slew of articles about Oryx and Crake and very few about anything else (and really only one about Frankenstein--but I think that will be OK, as I require that they use at least one thing we've read since the first essay, so they can't focus on Frankenstein alone). I found more essays about Year of the Flood through Google Scholar, so I'm going to request those interlibrary loan, in hope that they'll be good. I didn't have the energy to do further searching on Frankenstein or Androids--and honestly am a bit concerned about being overwhelmed by material, as both have been around long enough to gather quite an accretion of secondary sources. But this is a worry for another day. Or not even a worry; just something to think about later (perhaps when I'm stronger. You know.)

I also had a lovely chat with one of our former colleagues. She's now retired but very active in a professional organization, specifically in working on their annual regional conferences and biennial national conferences. She was encouraging me to submit something--perhaps a pre-conference workshop--for the conference this fall. It's very tempting, and very generous of her to hold that door open for me even though the official deadlines are long since passed, but I really don't think I have any ideas that would work--not unless I can get my colleagues from biology and psychology to join me again and maybe do a more relaxed and freeform version of what we presented a few years ago. Something more like what I originally had in mind, in fact. But pulling anything together would require a lot of conceptualizing on my part, and this is the part of my brain that lately has been feeling completely squeezed dry.

It is a tiny bit upsetting to me to feel so lacking in ideas, or in the mental energy to generate ideas. I'm sure I still can come up with them, if necessary; I just have apparently completely lost any drive to summon the energy generating ideas requires--especially if any kind of follow-through is needed after the initial conceptualization. That lack of energy, or perhaps enthusiasm, is a significant component of my feeling that I really am ready to retire, just as soon as I can manage it financially.

That said, I should go on record, once again with my awareness that, despite my bitching and moaning about students and work load and all that lot, there is a great deal about this job--this place, in fact, these specific students--that I still do love. When I focus on what is good about this work, this career, I am knocked flat with gratitude: what unbelievable, overwhelming good fortune is mine, to be able to do this and get paid for it! Paul and I talked yesterday about how much we have to be grateful for in our lives--starting with absolute, fundamental basics, like that our survival is not imperiled, and tracking all the way up the Maslowian hierarchy of needs, right up to "self-actualization." Yep: we have all of those needs met, fulfilled to the Nth degree.

In fact, I should be grateful about the fact that I can choose when to retire. I'm not being forced out of my career by my employer, nor is my health a factor that would impel me to retirement. I have the overwhelming good fortune to be able to make sure I retire with some certitude of financial comfort and ease. And until that time comes, I am still in the position to do this work, to live every day with this Godsend of livelihood.

So, my hope is to focus on how I can make this campus, this institution, work for me, instead of my feeling enslaved to it. What can I do, at each turn, to adapt my behaviors and expectations so I get the best out of being here? That's what I need to make my priority this year, and every year that I am lucky enough to continue working here.

Among the things I am grateful for is the fact that I can choose to walk out the office door today, any time I like, and am not shirking my responsibilities nor behaving in a way that my employer would find problematic. The fact that I'm here is above and beyond requirements. How many people can say that on any given week day? Unbelievable, overwhelming good fortune, for which I offer thanks and praise, thanks and praise.