1. Teaching
2. Entitled students: both whiny and jerky varieties
3. Service
4. Writing rec letters
5. First semester required core classes
6. Nausea
7. Fatigue
8. Required core classes that nobody wants to take
9. Grading
10. The Patriarchy
What are you tired of?
December 7, 2011 at 4:12 am
Oh, the letters of recommendation! I can just barely keep up with the end of semester grading but add the letters on top and it’s argh!
December 7, 2011 at 6:02 am
SRSLY.
December 7, 2011 at 6:31 am
SRSLY x 2.
December 7, 2011 at 4:24 am
1. LOR that must be snail mailed
2. kids home from school who impede my writing momentum
December 7, 2011 at 6:01 am
UGH. Yes on #1. Troglodytes. They need to get with the times!
December 7, 2011 at 6:31 am
No kidding! Clearly they hate trees.
December 7, 2011 at 6:16 am
People that don’t do the work they are paid for!
December 7, 2011 at 6:18 am
ARGH! Yes!
December 7, 2011 at 6:32 am
I’m tired of my not-quite-a-core-class that’s nevertheless filled with people who don’t want to be there and who think it’s “too” hard and I’m “mean.”
December 7, 2011 at 6:56 am
We shake our tiny fists at them!
December 7, 2011 at 7:38 am
Performance reviews. Optional and yet mandatory company holiday parties that eat up my precious weekend time.
December 7, 2011 at 7:40 am
Ours was thankfully a low-key buffet breakfast on university time (especially nice since all I had time to grab was a banana that morning!). Another department in the building had an optional yet mandatory thing after hours that included an optional yet mandatory white elephant exchange. What a waste of time.
December 7, 2011 at 8:39 am
Glad you are still having fatigue and nausea, ha ha!
A plagiarist student who is now whining that I don’t trust hir. Ya think?
December 7, 2011 at 11:14 am
Well… yes on the nausea… The fatigue is actually not just pregnancy related! We both have it!
December 7, 2011 at 8:53 am
UT Austin requires both online and snail mail LOR, I found out two minutes ago. Grrrt…
December 7, 2011 at 11:14 am
Annoying!
December 7, 2011 at 11:53 am
1. The RAIN, which has been pouring for days.
2. Curriculum committees and their “core competency” requirements
3. Thinking of things to feed the children for dinner.
4. Administrative busywork. (See #2)
December 7, 2011 at 4:59 pm
ditto on the rain
December 7, 2011 at 4:02 pm
I am tired of … always having to be the idea person. In a room full of smart people. I KNOW these people have ideas … why can’t they spit ‘em out??
December 7, 2011 at 5:44 pm
because they’re dazzled by your brilliance?
or you know, lazy…
December 7, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Being asked about extra credit. LAte students. Students not following directions and then being mad at me. Faculty fighting through e-mails and CC’ing the world.
December 7, 2011 at 5:21 pm
tee hee on the massive cc-ing. who knew people could be so passive agressive when grad school was just agressive-aggressive
December 8, 2011 at 9:25 am
I’ve gotten a lot of the aggressive stuff but also the lame stuff. “Bill, I will not be able to attend Jane’s retirement party. Thanks.” CC’s to all faculty and staff. The flip side of this of course is the people who say “I don’t know how to CC someone.”
December 7, 2011 at 5:42 pm
One of our favs:
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6436673/can-i-have-an-extension
And seriously, stop with the ccing. Or replying-all to a list-serv. We have too much email already!
December 7, 2011 at 6:49 pm
I’ve mostly solved the extra credit problem by posting the same extra credit opportunity at the very beginning of every semester. They have to do lots of extra work to get any credit, and there are multiple deliverables. Every semester a good chunk of the class says they’ll do it, and then very few actually do. I’m surprised at how well it works to provide them with an opportunity to do cool stuff for bonus credit AND (just as important) I have a ready response anytime anyone asks about extra credit.
I’m tired of this paper I’m writing.
December 7, 2011 at 7:00 pm
p.s. myalternativeroute.blogpsot.com we think does not point to your blog. (We wonder if all blogpsot.coms land in the same place.)
December 8, 2011 at 9:23 am
lol. Must be the low caffine. Thanks.
December 8, 2011 at 6:45 am
oh, man. I hate email sometimes. For some reason, this term, the 750 person class I TA for had not one, not two, but something like six students email the *entire* class asking for grades. Even more annoying is the fact that none of them could write an academic email, and I think only one even mentioned what class it was for. Most of these emails were a day or two before the test, and they all went along the lines of “man, my computer crashed. Can I get all the notes from XYZ date forward from someone? Sorry for the inconvenience!”
To me, this is further proof that 1) you should always take notes on paper first and 2) those students probably didn’t attend anyway. It really, really bugs me that students have the option of emailing the whole class.
December 7, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Rain on top of snow, followed by dipping temps that make sheets of ice. Yuck.
Lack of sleep.
The fact that the lack of sleep comes from sitting up waaaay too late with your friend, watching reruns of “Mythbusters.” I hate it when there’s no one to blame but myself.
December 7, 2011 at 5:40 pm
We are tired of the cold. And rain. We did not sign up for this.
December 7, 2011 at 9:19 pm
The incompetent IT department that changes rules/policy without notifying faculty and staff.
December 8, 2011 at 4:53 am
Oh man, have we got a story about this one…
December 7, 2011 at 10:15 pm
I’m tired of f*cken f*ckeasses who can’t make themselves happy, and look to other people for their happiness. YO! F*CEKASSE! That’s not how the world works!
December 9, 2011 at 11:49 am
What he said
December 8, 2011 at 6:43 am
My students were okay this term. I was kind of baffled that the one with a 50% came to the final, but I think it’s a financial aid thing (they have to prove they attended the whole course).
What I am tired of is wedding planning, even though it’s going fine. And even though I’ve had way less of some stresses than other folks, I’m still annoyed. The worst, which just started this week, is people offering obviously stupid advice for me re: wedding stuff. I am that point where I have to make weird little decisions (sweetheart table or head table?), so I post questions on facebook if I have no idea. And particularly annoying are the people who say crap like “it’s your wedding; you decide” (no crap, but still give me your opinion!) and, even worse, the folks who say “well, I had a backyard bbq with whatever goes, so you should do that.” My fiance’s family is a bit more blue collar and low key. This is fine, and I don’t care. But it bugs me when they assume I should have the same kind of wedding other folks have. When someone is having a winter wedding with a sit-down dinner, it’s not the same.
Okay, end rant. You did ask what I was tired of :-p
December 8, 2011 at 7:16 am
*keeps mouth shut* (As #2 will attest… I had a backyard bbq with whatever goes, so my opinion is these little choices probably don’t matter, so flip a coin if you can’t decide. You’re going to spend most of your time mingling away from the table anyway. My SIL’s mother freaked out about things like length of candles on the table decorations. Unimportant, and stressing out about it freaked out the bride. As a veteran wedding attendee, I will tell you what does matter is whether or not you feed the guests between the wedding and reception while you spend 2 hours getting photos. Also having the music too loud sucks. And cash bars are tacky. Either free alcohol or no alcohol.)
December 9, 2011 at 11:50 am
That was brilliantly executed #1
December 9, 2011 at 11:59 am
Tracking expenses. Giving money to the kids’ school on an almost daily basis. Feeling exhausted. My kitchen. The window blinds breaking (BOTH sets in my bedroom in a partially closed position wtf). Laundry (especially socks). Onion breath. Not knowing the future.