Derailed Work Days

Today I had a bad social media day.
A PNM meter reader who was not only rude, but called me a liar.
My insurance wouldn't let me enroll online, so I spent time on the phone enrolling, then had to call back because I also needed to enroll in the dental.

This was on top of a week where I've been sick, the first week of classes incidentally, where I spent a good portion of my time wondering if I was going to be violently ill in front of my classes as a first impression.

I blog a lot about the process of a PhD and teaching. And weeks like this impact our work. If you're like me, simple interactions (like my bad social media morning) can put you in a funk all day.

There are lots of ways to break bad days or writer's block. For some people a walk, yard work, housework, anything that jostles you out of the routine works.
For me, work works.

I have the same schedule every day. Nehi gets me up between 5-6a. We get up, I start coffee, we got for a 40 minute walk, I come home, she gets breakfast, and I sit down with coffee and start work. Regardless of how bad the day is I am at my desk until 4 or 5p on days I work from home.

There are lots of days I sit and stare at my computer. There are some days where I get a lot done. Regardless I'm not allowed to leave my desk. Most days I realize that because I know I can't leave my desk I eventually end up working on things and getting things done.

This week I needed to get my chapter three revisions finished. I managed because of office hour time to get all my handwritten notes done by yesterday so all I need to do today istype up these notes and add secondary sources as needed.
The good thing is this is fairly mindless work. I've already done all the heavy lifting/thinking/arguing with the handwritten notes.

Which is good because I don't think I have anything left in me this week.
If I can type all this up today I can look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow for final edits, then lesson plan, take Sunday off, and on Monday start chapter one revisions.

And of course this is all predicated on me actually feeling better not worse the next few days.

So not how I would like the first week of classes to go, but these things are all real life things. And they impact how we feel when lesson planning, grading, writing, planning, etc. As much as we would all like to say we're superheroes with capes, it doesn't always work out that way.

The plus side of this week has been my classes. The "Here Be Monsters" themed Survey of Early English is off to a great start, and the ENGL 110 class paired with the acting class is always fun. So I'm excited about both of those.

And I'm still on track for my #DevilDiss revisions, so I'm not panicked about that.

I think too that when juggling so much, and stressed about so much, sometimes little things trigger major meltdowns.
I like to turn into the skid, have my meltdown, then get back to work.