a day in the 'life'

I got up today at 5:15. I told myself I was going to dress up in dirty clothes and hang out at the Ironworker's hall. A union hall located just off of St. Louis Road in a small area incorporated into East Saint Louis.

Instead, I began working on my classwork. I told myself, "as long as my phone is working, I'll get some classwork done." Well, I finished up the class in no time. I was done with it by 7:30. My father had recommended that I get down to the Hall by 6:30 as that's when most work goes out. I didn't. I decided to play school teacher this morning.

I finished up my school teacher routine and was looking at about 7 papers and 2 group assignments to grade. At this time it was about 10. I spent a little time between 7:30 using the bathroom and watching theme tunes from 80s television sitcoms. I found the one that I had heard at about 7:00 on the radio. It was Hill Street Blues. Owing to this website, I found multiple links, so I watched several 10-minute-long tributes to a show that I used to watch called, "Spenser for Hire." After that, I watched a few videos about Avery Brooks, who played Hawk in that show. This ultimately led me to Deep Space 9 fan videos, and quickly to images of a member of the show, Nana Visitor. She was a short, well-built actor who I felt like staring at that moment. Then I quickly turned on my computer and scanned through videos to download. Finding none, I went to my pile and began watching until I came. Then I went to bed for 2 and a half hours and here I am--2 beers in and one paper half graded. It's now 1:15. I don't know how better to discuss time other than to demonstrate that distractions are quite time-consuming. Yet they're everywhere, when you work from home. And even with the best intentions going in, I ended up getting sucked into that vortex of bad habits this morning.

Oh, and I watched about 30 minutes of interview footage with a professor who inspired my entry into a doctoral program. I was looking for something and in its stead found quite a bit of inspiration for the last few responses to students that morning.

That was my day. It's hardly a day. Some work harder. Some think less. Most at least are required to remain in a employer-sanctioned location for 8 to 9 hours a day. I am not, nor do I feel obliged to go down to the Hall and grub for work. I'd rather just spend it at my house. To my mind, I have things that I can do here that are part of a job anyway, so I may as well do them here.

So there you have it, that's a day in the life. Now that it is 1:18 and I have yet to complete even one graded assignment, you can see how poorly I can manage my time sometimes. This kind of behavior is virulent within higher education. The first thing I did upon taking my first job was to completely and utterly give up on research or any activity of any kind. I had absolutely no heart, no interest, no perceived effort in it. All I liked to do was to read books of my interest. And that I did. But now I have nothing to show. I never finished, nor am I finishing what I set out to do today. That's a simple view of a day in the life of me. I cannot find a better pigeonhole into which I can situate an activity I'd rather not do, so the pigeon squirms it's way out, hour after hour, day in, day out. And eventually I get everything done at the last minute.

Congratulations.