August already

Groan. I feel like a rabbit in the headlights. I'm frozen in place, knowing that I must move, but I cannot. If I stand still, disaster will occur, but I can't move. My heart hammers in my chest, I long to do nothing but sleep, and yet there is so much to be done.

I have to finish grading and get grades turned in for the summer sessions. Then I must turn around immediately and start prepping for two NEW classes for the fall. This morning I unloaded on my poor patient husband and told him that it was foolish of me to let him convince me to teach this summer. I teach four classes each semester--heavy-duty writing classes. I have 80-95 students each semester. He teaches 3 classes each semester--the same classes, over and over again. He has homework assignments, tests, and a project now and then, but nothing like the grading I'm saddled with. Since being at Ferris, I've taught English 150, 250, 321, 311, 325, 321P, Lit 286, and now I'm adding English 074 and 280. Oh, and Women's Studies.

Meanwhile, I'm also expected to serve the college as an advisor and do committee work. Oh, and let's not forget publish-or-perish and submitting and going to conferences.

I wanted a livelihood--not a lifeless endurance of nonstop work. I want to have a life in addition to my work. Right now I am so burned out that I want to pull a disappearing act. My eyes are going out on me, my blood sugar is back to going crazy again, and my bone-density scan has revealed thinning of my left hip bones. I'm 60 years old, and all I have to look forward to is 7+ more years of having to live away from home during the week and staying behind on grading, feeling constantly stressed, having insomnia and gastric disturbances caused by stress, and just generally feeling as if I don't have a life.

Okay. That's enough whining for the moment.