I've had a rough couple of days. Tuesday evening I started sniffing, and by bedtime I was blowing large quantities of green snot. I stopped by McDonalds on the way to work for some orange juice and a frozen coffee beverage and worked almost 4 hours. By that evening I wanted soup and an Icee. My friend Beth offered homemade tomato soup, but I didn't get the message until after coming home from the grocery store. The offer was nice.
Last night the cold moved to my chest (its natural progression in my body), so I sounded really bad today and felt almost as bad as I sounded. Matt had an early meeting at the university, and after he left I realized that I had accidentally locked my keys in the car last night. Considering that I was fired the last time that happened to me, I stayed remarkably calm. I tore the house apart (which didn't leave it looking much worse than normal) looking for our spare key and after a while started to feel panicky. So I called my friend Susie and asked if she could take me to work. I think I woke her up, but she said she come. I kept looking for the key and stumbled across things like the bag I had packed for the hospital. It's empty now, but I suddenly remembered how it felt to hurriedly unpack and repack that bag so that we could take Neil to Springfield to be buried. And I cried. I was sick. I was tired. I was panicky. And I couldn't hold it together anymore. And then I found the spare key and called Susie to let her know. I got to work and got busy with the things that absolutely had to be done. After a while I heard someone else in the building. Susie showed up at my office door with a huge chocolate muffin and some hot tea. I felt loved.
A little later I emailed the pastor to see if he and his wife would be willing to fold bulletins this week as they had been doing before I was hired. He called and told me to go home as soon as possible and that he would take care of it. My boss and his wife are so nice. I have worked for several pastors who wouldn't have helped out like that.
I like the church job. The people I've met have been nice, and someone in the church left me home-grown cucumbers last week. I like making the office more efficient: I'd forgotten how good it feels to be the office oracle. And they've got some creative work for me coming up. I mostly work by myself, so I don't have co-worker issues. I see the pastor about once a week and communicate with everyone by email most of the time. I tend to keep the door locked, so there's no foot traffic to deal with. And the phone doesn't ring too often. It's way different from my time at LM. And I like the difference. I miss some of the LM people, but the less stressful work environment is healthier.
Today was new student orientation at the university, but I didn't feel up to going. Matt was on campus so I went in to meet him and thought I'd ask about registering for classes while I was there. I went to student records and the nice lady told me to go home and get well and register on Monday. I figure I'll stop by admissions before or after the video production class. If I have trouble, I'll appeal to the VP of admissions: he's the pastor of the church I work at.
I was waiting to schedule classes until after I knew for sure when I'm teaching. I got a phone call on Tuesday that they needed me to teach another section of Basic English. I told them I'd do it if both my classes were on the same days so that I could use identical syllabi. The department chair said he'd check with the dean and get back to me. I didn't hear anything until we went to a faculty reception last night and the dean told me I was teaching at 2 p.m. Monday-Friday. I was surprised and my snot-covered brain had trouble processing. I talked it over with Matt, and he agreed that different class lengths add prep work and that I don't need that much extra work. My morning meltdown further confirmed it. Then this morning Susie told me that she was at advising to register for classes and that my name was on the course schedule given to all freshman. So I immediately called the dean and department chair to tell them I couldn't teach both classes. I sounded so sick on the phone that they were understanding.
So this weekend my job is to get healthy and finish my syllabus. Monday I'll register for classes and attend a couple. Tuesday I'll teach a class. And sometime that week I need to get the house clean enough for Matt's fantasy class to come over to watch the Lord of the Rings movies on Saturday.
I feel like I'm at the starting line waiting for the pistol to go off and send me sprinting toward Christmas. It's good to know I have people I can count on if I get winded along the way.
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