If these posts had visible titles - lo-fi Diaryland 4eva - it would read "Time Management". Or lack thereof. The irony of taking time to blog while complaining about not having good time management - I know, I know. But as I was just discussing with/yelling at AH about, my time management is so screwed these days. We are in the last three weeks of school - major, major, major projects - some of which haven't even been started yet - are due in three weeks. Major, major, major work projects are also due in the next three weeks. It used to be, I would hole up and be a complete bitch and skip a few classes for a week and spend 8 hours solid time at home working a couple of times and get it done. But this isn't an option anymore and it's driving me crazy. Weekends are baby time, and it's not fair to leave 100% parental care on AH's shoulders a couple of times a month, it's just not. Nights, I have between when she goes down at 7 pm until when I fall asleep which is honestly 10:30. Every other minute in my weekdays is work or class.
Cutting class isn't usually an option - freeing up one hour in a day that has 7 hours blocked around it, doesn't help that much. Which brings me to my main complaint - the patchiness of my free time and how modern life and screwed up it is. Let's take today:
8:30 - arrive at work, after dropping off baby and husband takes off with car.
This gives me 1.5 hours until an important meeting which I spend 1 hour prepping for and .5 hours chatting with the 3 people I share an office with.
10:30-11:30 - meeting
I have to get a bus at 12:30 to get to class so go down and try and concentrate and achieve something in one hour.
Get Bus One to spot where I can get Bus Two to get to class by 2 pm (Thus rendering one hour completely useless)
2:00-3:15 - class
I would get the 3:30 bus back to Durham but there is a nice man and library patron who has been taking the 3:30 bus lately and wants to talk the WHOLE WAY and he is nice but damn man, I need that half hour to read articles and work on stuff. So I wait in a building beside the bus stop, catching up on my email until the 4 o'clock bus. Approach the bus - spy said man on the bus and turn around. ARRGHGHGHGHG. Now may as well get 4:30 so go inside and wait again. Once I get to other side of bus ride, I'll have 15 minutes to wait around for my ride. 15 minutes here - 30 minutes there - these times add up but I can't make them work for me in a solid, thoughtful way. It's just enough time to take out a laptop and type a blog entry or return an email. Due to our one car family, which I really like, having one car, I am always the one being dropped off or waiting for a bus or waiting for a ride and sometimes that just makes me want to SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM. Sometimes I want to be in charge of how and when I go places. Sometimes I want to stay home, all day, and work. Sometimes I want to gather up all the little scraps of times like the left over bits when you make biscuits - you know what I means? - and amke them into a ball and roll it out and use them properly instead of scrappily, half-assed and ragged.
"How would you like to solve this?" asked my calm, reasonable husband and the point is not to solve right now, it is to vent. But honestly, I think I would very much like to go for a beer with a friend and waste more time talking about it. Go figure.
In the vein of time being a joke, I leave you with "This Always Happens!" We have lived in North Carolina for almost 2 years now - can you believe it?? My Mom visited after the baby and my brother on the way back to Germany once but otherwise, no friend has made the trek. Fair enough. But this month we have friends - a couple and the guy who always goes on vacation with them which is just WEIRD - from Vancouver coming and dropping in and out over 3 weeks. Arrive April 15th, one week before EVERYTHING is due. Fine. This morning my brother e-mails me and he and his (glacial German) girlfriend have already booked tickets and will be coming and going from our house for much of the same 3 weeks as our friends. And somewhere in there, I hope to catch a glimpse of You Know Who You Are from Portland, visiting her home turf with her baby. Yeah. Rains, pours, etc. but STILL. Be kind universe.
Now the bus is here. See, a perfectly good 1/2 hour = gone.