is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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spending time.

The spring semester always takes longer to end than it should. The winding down and constant appearing of random undone tasks, combined with my birthday, always make me take longer to start getting to work on my own work than I ought to take. However, whatever. It's a week or two. I have a colleague who told me last week that he feels guilty when he takes a two hour lunch break because he could be getting some of his own writing or research done. He said that before we even had handed in grades or finished our "Professional Activities Form" report. I was all, dude, you better go to the movies in the middle of the day very soon or I'm afraid you're going to show up at faculty meeting with a gun someday. (I'm not really worried that he would do that, but you get my point.) (However, he has a wife and a young kid, so I'm sure that means he has less time to get his work done, etc.)

I still think he needs to go to a matinee. There is this tendency among academics to work all the time since there is no official schedule or timeclock telling you when work is over. This contributes to building a culture where everyone judges everyone else not only by how much work they get done but by how much time they spend doing it and, even worse, how unhappy they are (in a perverse equation where unhappy=good). It's as if being happy and taking time for things you enjoy outside of work said something bad about your character! And that is incredibly, ridiculously abusive and misguided. It is also hard to combat, since many academics are not very self-reflective about this part of their lives. But I tell you I am not falling for it. And I get a good amount of work done.

(There is also this insidious thing at some institutions where the one thing that it is OK to do outside of work is have a family/kids. If you do not have that, then you have no excuse for doing whatever it is you enjoy--your life's value and structure is unrecognizable. The older I get, the more I recognize how heavy the normative pressures around the family unit are in U.S. culture.)

My birthday was fine. Woke up, lazed around. Opened a bunch of cards that were sent to me, and the gifts from my sister. Walked to the shopping area in Ardmore, PA. Did a lot of gazing at things and some buying. Had lunch and champagne. Did some more gazing/buying. My friend Cristina picked me up around 7 and we went to a newish tequila/tapas bar in Bryn Mawr. I had a mint margarita and two passion fruit margaritas, all tasty. We had a fun wide-ranging talk about life and all that. Then my friends David and Lisa Jane showed up, had drinks, and we all decided to stay for dinner. It was fun.

I didn't get any presents that were wrapped this year. No unwrapping of presents! I realized that I've had a good run, however, as I just turned 44 and this is the first time I haven't had gifts to unwrap on my birthday. Not so bad.

Still, next year, someone is going to wrap something and give it to me. He knows who he is.

10:27 a.m. - May 27, 2010

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