Protected: Outside the daily grind

I’d rather live a boring life, thank you.

I’ve been sitting at this computer for awhile now, barely understanding the world I currently live within. Yet, I try so hard to understand just why I function from day to day, walking from point A to point B only to find myself back at point A the very next morning. I tire of my boringness, yet I can do nothing to break out of the mold. Just like all of the other puppets in this world, I have become one of them. Yet, when I look at myself, what is within, I am not like them at all. I’m trapped in a puppet’s body and life and I can’t get out….

Today began like any other day – I went to work. I didn’t want to go, but I did anyway. I have stuff I have to do. I didn’t get nearly as far as I would have liked, but I did get farther than I thought I would, so it kinda works out in the end – I suppose.

Every Monday and Friday, I get to have an very awkward conversation with a student who doesn’t understand the concept of personal privacy and there are things I do not need to know. Today was no different.

Today, like every other day, I worked too many hours, enjoyed parts of it but it’s gotten dull. I spend most of my days alone, which in some ways I enjoy, but it gets habitual after awhile and I wonder when I will have moments to break away, to make stronger connections with the friends I have, while forming new friendships with people I do not yet know. I avoid situations that I don’t want to be in – large groups of people, events where alcohol is involved. I’ve just learned to avoid the disruption in my life, though I know that I could easily break out of this routine that I am in if I would just allow myself to enter into those situations – but they have done nothing to make me excited about them and I always end up bored in the end.

I believe my problem has always been the fact that I make friends with everyone, but I rarely make friendships that are deep enough to be close bonds. I know part of my problem deals with the fact that too often people expect me to fit a certain stereotype and so they make assumptions that just don’t work, so I’m always the odd one out.

Anyway, enough being philosophical and back to my day. My day as you can see was boring and the highlight came at the end when something decided to destroy any normalcy, but of course, it couldn’t be something good. After unlocking my trunk to put something inside, my key decided to snap in two pieces and leave half of itself within the lock, leaving me unable to unlock any of my doors or start the car for that matter. Yeah, not good. Luckily, my colleague’s truck was there and his wife was busy teaching a class, so I grabbed it, drove the couple miles home and back to get my spare key so I could at least get home. I attempted to get the key out of the lock after getting home, but nope, it is gone. I can no longer unlock my trunk from the outside (with my key – I can, however, open it with a screw driver.)

So, what awaits me tomorrow? Let’s hope it’s another boring day where nothing exciting happens because I don’t know if I can handle the excitement anymore. It’ll be a long day, I’m giving two tests, attending class & working more on my work, then it’s off to home so I can pack and drive many hours in the morning.

Peace and Love.

Awaking in Pain

Yesterday, I woke up early in the morning with sore throat. After drinking a little water and popping in a couple of tylenol, I got back into bed and switched on the TV for a bit as I waited for either my body to get back to sleep or the drugs to work. As I laid there, I checked my phone and I was happy to see a surprise – I received a text from a friend overseas whom I have been helping through some problems lately. It was really sweet of her and I sent one back, and it made me smile. Despite having a painful throat, I was able to put a smile on my face. I realized at that moment that while I don’t have a ton of friends in this area, I do have friends around the world and I know I can count on them if I am ever in a situation of need.

Today, I woke up with a sinus headache and a cough, my appetite is acting weird and I don’t feel the greatest. But, I know this is likely the worst I’ll be. When I get sick, this is how sick I get, usually it lasts a day or two and it goes away. I spent most of my evening sleeping and I will try to get back to sleep in a bit, luckily I am not getting behind in anything anymore than I was.

In other news, I booked a vacation earlier this week and I am going to have a much needed break from my daily stress. During this next week, I will travel to a conference where I will be presenting a workshop and then I will leave shortly after that for a vacation. Some people have told me not to blog much or tweet much during these times, but I haven’t decided what I want to do just yet. My vacation is not a vacation from the world, but a vacation from my job & daily stress. I don’t think I can go that long without reading news, communicating with friends & writing. I know I won’t be as active, partly because where I am going won’t have a lot of cell phone coverage and I will be focused on my studies, so we shall see what happens.

With love & peace

Frustrations on the job

Today was a culmination of frustrations that illustrate why I am not happy at my job. Yes, I am going to blog about work in public which has become a rare thing.

I went into work this morning so that I could do a little work to fix a problem that I have discovered yesterday in my work. This way when I had students around in the evening, we weren’t having to fix them then. I have also had a missing student worker, so I have started to assume he is not going to be available and that I’m alone with students who are learning the process but are not always capable of doing it on their own.

In order to complete this work, I had to use my woodshop and make a lot of noise. Upon entering the shop, which is next door to a theatre without a proper sound barrier, I learn that there is a bunch of high school students on stage playing in a band concert. A concert that I had not been informed of and I would later be informed that our department was not informed of this until yesterday.

I got out my laptop and did a few things on it hoping that I can wait them out and then make noise when they are done. Of course, then I realized it was a bunch of schools and it was not going to be done any time soon. So, I went and grabbed lunch early and when I came back noticed they were between performances and so I quickly did my work and got on my way.

The above situation is a constant problem of mine. I am not able to do work due to something in the theatre, which I have no control over and do not have any knowledge of the events scheduled. I do not know from day to day whether I will go to work and be able to accomplish something or waste my day doing nothing because I cannot.

On top of this, other facilities that I need access to in order to complete my job are operated by other people and do not inform me either. So, even if I can do work in my woodshop, this does not mean I can accomplish things. In addition, I do not own a large vehicle and rely on my job to provide me with proper items that are required to complete my job. This, at the moment, is my colleague’s truck, though I personally think we should not be using our personal vehicles, but it’s his choice. That is, until it breaks down and I can’t use it when I need to.

Ok, so all of this has happened over the last week, which has caused me to delay my work or work on things that I don’t need to do right now. All of this keeps me from performing my duties at top notch skill. So, in turn, it must be my fault that I have to inform people that I can’t complete the task on time and that it will be delayed by a week. “But, if we don’t have this or that, the whole company will be delayed” they will say. And, I get to nod and say, I know and I am working on it knowing full well that there is nothing I can really do to fix this problem. So, instead, I “get” to work long hours, evenings & weekends to do my job. I “get” to, yes.

My colleague gave a possible solution of pushing some of his student work force over to me to work on it. But, I know or I hope he knows that I’m not lacking student help, I’m lacking the facilities, resources and things I need in order to complete the projects desired. This has nothing to do with my planning or poor planning, even if I had started earlier on my process, I would still run into these walls because I am dependent on all of these other variables. Yet, it’s still my problem to solve.. I so just want to scream but I know it won’t do any good. Even during meetings we all know the problems we are facing and we all know it’s not our fault, it’s just frustrating when it’s not clear in front of the students.

It frustrates me that my skills, no matter what kind of skills I have, cannot be fully realized due to limitations places on me from outside variables. I have learned to adapt, but it’s so frustrating that it is driving me away from the career I thought I loved.

If any of my students read this, if you want to know why I’m taking classes in International Relations, I will not lie to anyone when I find work elsewhere – this University is crap when it comes to resources and support for their facilities, their faculty and their students. I have no problem explaining that I am not leaving because I hate someone or can’t stand working with someone. I truly believe I can work with everyone in my department & work with them well. But when a job asks of me more than I feel I should provide due to their inadequacy, I have no problem saying “Goodbye” when I chose to leave.

I am proud of myself for one thing this week – I have already remained firm in the fact that when I leave for vacation, I am not coming back until I am done with my vacation. I do not care if the department needs something, if the University needs something. I will not be answering any phone call from work. Solve your problems, work with what you have and I don’t care. This is the most strict approach I have taken since I started here and it all stems from the fact that I am taking control of my life so that my job does not destroy any sense of human dignity I have remaining.

On that note, I am off to bed, I am giving a midterm tomorrow that I consider to be one of the hardest tests that some of these students will take while at this University. But, before that, I have to wake up early enough to lecture & go to class.

Soft and Silvery White

I give up. I wake up every morning in a decent mood, go to work and I remain in a good mood and I come home and I’m exhausted and cannot do anything but think about sleep. I know part of this is due to the fact that my day starts early with classes or work starting at 9am and many days I don’t get home until late, if I’m lucky I’ll get out at 5pm, but it’s rare. Today, I left at 7pm. Tomorrow, I normally get the morning off, but I need to go in and do work that I wanted to get done today so I can prep it for tomorrow night.

I’m just so sick of always being tired and never feeling like the work ends…

I’m very much thinking about booking myself a vacation after next week, I need time off and I need to do it in a place that is away from here. I found a really nice excluded cabin where cell phones don’t tend to work, but I would still have internet access. I will have a midterm essay exam to work on that week and I have a lot of reading I want to do. I’m just thinking I need to take myself away from my current world so I can focus on what I enjoy instead of always being so tired.

I just don’t know how I can survive this much longer..