Kind of Blue, and One Happy Red Thing
Oct. 31st, 2017 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelseagirlApologies to Miles Davis for stealing his title . . .
My budget at work is all messed up because a department administrator refused to look after the stuff I requisitioned out of the remnants of my budget back in May -- I am on a 10-month contract and wasn't around in the summer since I don't get paid then. And I don't understand all of the formalities anyway. And she understands the system and could have managed it for me, but nooooo, too much work for her. Hardly any work at all, really.
My senior seminar which I am really excited about only has 3 students registered while a lot of the other senior seminars are closed-out full already. It is SO HARD not to take that as total failure on my part. I noticed that a new faculty member also has slow enrollment, so I assume that new classes were not in the Wiki or the Reddit or wherever they look up what courses to take. But even if it runs, being last chosen means I will not necessarily get students who are excited about my class. Dammit, I remember when my classes filled quickly. *cough* Elsewhere. Here I mostly teach First Year Writing, which is never in fear of not filling. But this class, this one I really wanted. Feeling pretty crushed, actually.
The brilliant panel I organized for the 4Cs conference (THE college composition conference) was waitlisted. The proposal was super-interesting and the rest of the people on it were way more impressive than me. And it still wasn't good enough.
The kudoses I was getting for my old fanfic series are drying up -- only one last time and none so far this time and the woman who was being awesome and commenting on every single one (she alone was enough to keep me going!) hasn't commented on the last two. Which . . . yeah, okay, they're old and I'm putting them up for myself. BUT . . . since I'm using a number of the original characters in my mystery novel, the enthusiasm about the fics, no matter that it was small-scale, was enough to make a huge difference in my believing in myself.
I always get depressed coming up to November 5, which is the anniversary of my brother's death. (1981, and it's not nearly so bad as it once was, but I still miss him and still get depressed more or less every fall.) Poor M, who's quite fond of Guy Fawkes Day and is not allowed to "remember, remember, the 5th of November . . ." around here. Plus it's getting dark early and I'm pretty sure I'm part green plant . . . I flourish in the light.
On the up side, on my way home from work, I picked up my red Peggy Carter Stetson from East Village Hats where I had it reblocked. The milliner wired the brim, and it now tilts and looks like much more like Peggy's actual hat in the opening credits. (Which was reblocked by the costume designer; the milliner and I had a long and passionate conversation about Peggy's hat and costumes when I brought it in.) It was nice wearing it home tonight; that was the closest I got to a Halloween costume this year.
Oh, and another happy thing -- I finally get to start approving the time for my own Writing Center staff, instead of same administrator as above doing it. It was ridiculous that I was not able to supervise that myself, and now I will be able to do so.
My budget at work is all messed up because a department administrator refused to look after the stuff I requisitioned out of the remnants of my budget back in May -- I am on a 10-month contract and wasn't around in the summer since I don't get paid then. And I don't understand all of the formalities anyway. And she understands the system and could have managed it for me, but nooooo, too much work for her. Hardly any work at all, really.
My senior seminar which I am really excited about only has 3 students registered while a lot of the other senior seminars are closed-out full already. It is SO HARD not to take that as total failure on my part. I noticed that a new faculty member also has slow enrollment, so I assume that new classes were not in the Wiki or the Reddit or wherever they look up what courses to take. But even if it runs, being last chosen means I will not necessarily get students who are excited about my class. Dammit, I remember when my classes filled quickly. *cough* Elsewhere. Here I mostly teach First Year Writing, which is never in fear of not filling. But this class, this one I really wanted. Feeling pretty crushed, actually.
The brilliant panel I organized for the 4Cs conference (THE college composition conference) was waitlisted. The proposal was super-interesting and the rest of the people on it were way more impressive than me. And it still wasn't good enough.
The kudoses I was getting for my old fanfic series are drying up -- only one last time and none so far this time and the woman who was being awesome and commenting on every single one (she alone was enough to keep me going!) hasn't commented on the last two. Which . . . yeah, okay, they're old and I'm putting them up for myself. BUT . . . since I'm using a number of the original characters in my mystery novel, the enthusiasm about the fics, no matter that it was small-scale, was enough to make a huge difference in my believing in myself.
I always get depressed coming up to November 5, which is the anniversary of my brother's death. (1981, and it's not nearly so bad as it once was, but I still miss him and still get depressed more or less every fall.) Poor M, who's quite fond of Guy Fawkes Day and is not allowed to "remember, remember, the 5th of November . . ." around here. Plus it's getting dark early and I'm pretty sure I'm part green plant . . . I flourish in the light.
On the up side, on my way home from work, I picked up my red Peggy Carter Stetson from East Village Hats where I had it reblocked. The milliner wired the brim, and it now tilts and looks like much more like Peggy's actual hat in the opening credits. (Which was reblocked by the costume designer; the milliner and I had a long and passionate conversation about Peggy's hat and costumes when I brought it in.) It was nice wearing it home tonight; that was the closest I got to a Halloween costume this year.
Oh, and another happy thing -- I finally get to start approving the time for my own Writing Center staff, instead of same administrator as above doing it. It was ridiculous that I was not able to supervise that myself, and now I will be able to do so.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 02:44 pm (UTC)Of course the one person in particular could be on vacation, or ill, or busy, or have a broken computer... or could have been on vacation when she had time to read the earlier stories.
I imagine that most of us don't have alerts set up for most of our older fandoms, to tell us whenever new fanfic is added for them. I believe that many people look about once a year -- when reminded by Yuletide. Perhaps more people will see your stories when they go looking during the holiday events? I used to take a look at my older fandoms four or five times a year, on holidays when I'm home alone, but that's dwindled and become more rare. I enjoy the stories when I remember to go seek them, but it's usually many months after they post, and if they're backdated to when they're first written, instead of floating on the top chronologically, I may not notice them until I page through the old fandom's whole corpus.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 08:17 pm (UTC)The fic is not a major part of it, really -- it's mostly the work things that are happening, especially the class not filling and the conference rejection when I worked so hard to get a good group and proposal together and this is like my third fail. But because writing is such a part of my professional identity, it's all enmeshed right now . . .
More of it is probably seasonal affective disorder, the anniversary of my brother's death coming up, and etc.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-03 06:20 am (UTC)LiveJournal just reminded me that Abby's birthday is coming up on the fifth of November. I know that it is. I don't need a platform from which I haven't quite yet totally disentangled myself to tell me that. Or maybe I do. And maybe that's part of why I haven't quite disentangled myself. Because I didn't think of it in time to send her parents a snail-mail card.
We do a "quotation of the day" thing at work, and today was my turn, and I picked an excerpt from a poem about "the challenge of November." A coworker asked me what that meant. I blinked. Of course the challenge of November is the dark and the cold and the waning year, and in much earlier eras the anticipation of hunger, and it's not the month of the dead by coincidence...
Peggy's hat.
Approving the time for your team.
New Trek episodes, Marvel movie, Star Wars movie.
Days off for Thanksgiving.
♥
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 06:46 pm (UTC)Plus awesome hat. I bet it looks great on you.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 10:43 pm (UTC)Sometimes I wonder why we still change the clocks. Yes, we have a little bit more light in the morning, but it won't last for very long. I hate leaving work in the pitch black now.
I'm glad that you got the hat, though!!! And yay for finally being able to do more actual running of the writing center!!!
Wouldn't it be nice to have lots of positives and fewer negatives? :( I feel that way myselk.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-03 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-06 03:56 am (UTC)I'm also sorry about your seminar! How many students do you need for it to run? Even if they aren't excited to start, perhaps you'll be able to win them over.
Ugh at your department administrator. That sounds very frustrating!
The hat sounds awesome.