Thursday, July 7, 2011

Bad Teacher

Feel like her today. Don't look like her today.
Warning: I am in a foul mood. It might be exhaustion from days spent babysitting little cousins in a strange house. It might be the feeling that I'm behind on work and can't catch up. Probably, it's a sense of entitlement: it's summer. Why am I teaching??

Even worse: I took a couple of hours off from grading, figuring that if I was profoundly cranky, I should be prevented from having any interaction with students in order to prevent psychological damage. When I finally returned to the job, the first email I sent addressed the student by the wrong name. www.Failblog.org, anyone? Revocation of tenure, anyone?

I am a pretty even-keeled person. Even when I'm extremely tired or stressed, I try my best to shove it deep down and maintain a general aura of complacency (very healthy, I'm sure ;-) And this, this burning sense of irritation and entitlement, only vaguely tied to the self-loathing I'm intimately familiar with,  is so foreign to me. I feel like calling it a day at 7:54 p.m.

I'm taking the rest of the night off from work and interacting with other human beings. I'm going to sit on the couch with a box of Nerds, watch Pulp Fiction, and maybe even sign up for an all-day Bikram workshop that's taking place at the end of the month. There's nothing like dreaming about the future to distract you from your current state of despair, right?

So... when y'all are cranky, and I mean throw-in-the-towel-at-8:00-so-you-can-get-this-awful-day-over-with cranky, what do you do? (Please wait until at least tomorrow to offer holier-than-thou answers such as yoga, meditation, or good deeds, or I will throw a cyber-book at you.)

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*edited to add the following uber-important update: Nerds helped, Pulp Fiction not so much. I've gotten waaaay more sensitive as I've gotten older, and the violence was kinda unsettling. Got me all aggro, to. Woke up a million times better, and a juicy Bikram class cooked away the residual cranky :-)

6 comments:

Dorothy said...

Times like that, if I don't have Xanax or Valium handy, Advil PM and a BIG cocktail to put me to sleep so I can start over again. If I can't put myself to bed for some reason, I go with finding things to mash (potatoes, avocados, tomatoes). If you have a place to break glass without hurting yourself, that's also really satisfying. And then French fries and Hollandaise. But I'm a fan of Nerds as well.

hannahjustbreathe said...

Um, I drink. Seriously. Wine comes in a big bottle for a reason...

:)

Anonymous said...

Music helps take the edge off, especially in those rare times when you can’t drink, but it has to be good, the kind that makes you wiggle. I have been the queen of cranky lately too (my patience is thin and Cash ate all my squash blossoms) and your blog made me smile. Is it true that misery loves company? I feel guilty but there is so much comfort in not being the only one.

Elisa said...

Dorothy, when I am stressed during the semester and desperately need to sleep for 10 hours, Advil PM is my best friend. It helps.

Alcohol no longer agrees with me, Hannah :-( It is very, very sad.

Marti, bummer about the squash blossoms!! And I totally understand: misery loves company because feeling like you're the only one is a TRULY miserable feeling.

La said...

Hahahah! This post cured the mini-hangover right outta me. I like that you're responsible enough to put away work before it reaches a whole new level LOL.

When I desperately need to destress or decompress, really really bad romantic comedies are my ailment's cure. Mostly cuz they make me glad I'm not like them....

Kat said...

haha!!! Tylenol pm. a FAV of mine!