So, I've been enjoying a mostly pain-free day, until I began writing up my coding matrix for distribution to my committee on my whiteboard. All of the sudden, my left arm (which is holding a piece of paper) begins to kill me - pain shooting down the bicep area in a wide swath, eventual tingling in my hand, and just, you know, pain. Obviously, I need to stop working, right?
Wrong. In the same way that ice cream doesn't cause drownings, I am choosing to believe that correlation does not imply causality. The same type of thing did happen during my meeting with my chair last week, so the evidence could be seen as mounting, but of course I've had pain while talking on the phone, walking, talking with people I like, falling asleep (or waking up at 3am), eating chocolate, and during many other pleasurable activities. I've also not had pain when carrying somewhat heavy objects, writing emails or blog posts, bending over to pick up the cat, or even reading at the computer. Confirmation bias, anyone?
PS Tech support has fixed my computer, which had a fried motherboard. Awesome!
Should I walk to get my Masters degree? Here are my thoughts, pros and cons jumbled together:
It is indeed an achievement. I will get to wear regalia and practice for the "real thing" which is the Ph.D. graduation (which won't happen for a while). The fact that I'm thinking of it as practice is a con. It's only a few hours out of my life, so it could be a good thing to do. I don't really know any of the other MS students I'll be graduating with, though, since it's been so long since I've entered the program. It could provide a sense of achievement which I could probably use. I'm not thrilled about the speaker - I like and admire this person, but I have heard them speak in much more intimate venues, so it's not really as exciting a choice as it might be. I haven't invited my family to come because I don't feel like it's that big a deal - everything really does suffer in comparison to what I haven't yet accomplished re: the Ph.D. And yet, it is a big deal. I can't believe I actually did it, so I should proably walk to prove to myself that I've accomplished something.
I'm only recently beginning to realize how incredibly hard I am on myself. Reading the above list, and reflecting on other happenings of late, I'm kind of stunned by the weight of the judgments I've been carrying around. I'm working on being kinder and more aware, which is a good thing.
In neck news, things are slowly improving - in spite of the annoying tingling that has begun happen in my hand, in conjunction with the pencil-eraser of pain at the top of the crook of my elbow, I seem to be able to re-align in such a way that it goes away eventually. My goal, obviously is to have multiple days in a row where it doesn't happen at all. That requires more diligence on my part, but I'm hopeful.
When one hits "enter" twice in rapid succession, the text in one's Dr@gonPad dictation box disappears, never to be seen again. Damnit. Save early and often - it's a learned behavior that you'll never regret.
What was lost was merely a warm up discussion about why I don't like narrative mysteries like "Lost" or "Law and Order" solve the murder-type shows. I suppose I'd rather lose this than really important dissertation text, but still, it's irritating.
Some of the students I have are "pretty tough" to deal with at times. Today's issue has to do with an email from my most challenging student. Last week, he was full of excuses such as: claiming to be unaware of the paper policy more than half-way through the quarter, that his paper was disorganized before the source material was disorganized, and he thought he spell-checked it but he must have given me the "other one", etc. etc.
So, he emailed his paper to me a day before class, with no comment. It was full of factual errors, misspellings, grammatical errors, and was disorganized to boot. I wrote back with some comments, a suggestion that he reread the syllabus to reconnect with the purpose of the assignment and the way I grade it, and some organizational methods he might use to improve the paper. In the response email, which was was poorly constructed, full of bad spelling and excuses and some "joke" whining, he included the sentence:
Boy. for someone so <blank> you sure are <blank>.
(insert the quoted words from the first sentence of this entry)
which, needless to say, did little to advance his case. Not that it will expressly hurt him, of course, but ugh.
The second draft paper that he turned in for the assignment had only the factual errors I specifically mentioned to him corrected, but has not been spellchecked or otherwise edited. Is it just overcommitment? A learning disability? Laziness? Some other issue? I will allow students to rework their papers, so I'm guessing if he really cares to improve it he'll do so later, but I am beginning to wish I'd never made that policy, even though I know it's not personal.
In contrast, two other students have approached me for help in reworking their papers and they seem really interested in improving their writing (and their grade), so it's not all bad, just irritating. I can tell that the class is responding to my comments, as their papers are getting better each week, and the class discussions are becoming more lively as well, which means that they're feeling more comfortable discussing their ideas aloud. So, hooray for the good.
My car has been out of commission for a while – I haven’t actually driven in since late March, because the battery died for no discernable reason. Pique, perhaps. In any case, today was going to be the day that we got the car running, and then cleaned out and vacuumed both cars.
We cleaned one of the cars, got everything else set up and flipped the vacuum switch. A strange clicking, far above our heads, ensured. Further investigation showed the clicking to come from a security light fixture that we’ve never liked, can't reach with our tallest ladder, and don’t know how to dismantle.
You know, I’m totally bored even writing this all down, so here’s the short form:
- Vaccuum cleaner trips light in some weird way that we can’t reach or fix.
- That same fuse also powers the garage door opener, which remains open, showing our disordered clutter to one and all who pass. Humiliating, but what can you do?
- I start cleaning out the dead battery car, and I find the Nalgene bottle I've been missing for a while, which contains about three swallows of cloudy brown liquid.
- I don't remember, and I don't want to know.
- I also discover unaccountably moist objects, and powdery mildew growing in odd places.
- Investigating further, I find about an inch of standing water in the wheel well. WTF?!
- I bail that out, then mop things up a bit.
- We get the car jumped, which was one of the original intents of the day.
- Preparing for a battery charging drive, I put in a cassette tape that I’d discovered in the other car, a relic of the previous owners which is intriguingly labeled Beginning and End. I like the first 30 seconds of what I’m hearing, get excited about having found a treasure, and then the tape catches and snags and breaks. Fine.
- As I reverse out of the driveway, the grating sound from the front wheel wells is discovered to be the fault of two fairly flat tires.
- I maneuver the car to a parking place on the street without event, although an unmarked police car was leaving the parking lot across the street (the car’s registration expired in April).
- I breathe a sigh of relief about that, pick up the spare tire to put it back in the car, and get slimed by the crud that was growing underneath it. Of course.
- I’m done.
- After seventeen (!) years of ownership, I think I’m finally ready to say goodbye to the Mighty. Even if it does get about 40 MPG.
So long, Fester.
