I’m one of those weirdos who actually LIKES his job, and I know that by getting up at six and heading out into the rat race, my poor battered body will have a slight reprieve from the abuse that is constantly pounded into it. The thing is, you get really thrilled about holidays, even though you dread the doom of an impending Monday.
Anyway, yesterday I was really looking forward to watching the Blues/Highlanders game. It was scheduled for 15:05, so when I passed out, I studiously set my alarm clock.
Woke up, and with a spring in my step, tried to find a suitable stream. No such luck. Just a series of sewerage spam.
After 30 minutes into the game, I’m getting seriously pissed off. I just can’t find a link. And I know all the best ones.
Then it dawned on me: “Oh, wait, hang on. The game isn’t today, it’s tomorrow!”
Long weekends can really fuck with one’s sense of time.
Watching now. So refreshing to see packed stadiums in New Zealand when most of the rest of the world is under lockdown. Eden Park looks like it’s a World Cup final!
Poor Liverpool having to take their first EPL title in 30 years in empty stadiums. In the words of the greatest modern orator: “Sad”.
I’m actually very partial to kittens. puppies, rainbows, winning the lottery and world peace. Mythological beasts and dumbfuck funny-pictures-of-the-year threads I could quite happily live without, though.
I have a three month weekend. I’m off for the entire summer and I’m already bored out of my mind. Since I can’t travel outside of Taiwan, there’s no point. I’d rather just teach and make extra money.
Are you at an instructor or professor level? I stupidly got myself promoted a couple years ago, so I’m sort of dreading grade submission in a few hours. During the semester I can guiltlessly “procrastinate” on the research I’m supposed to do by focusing on the teaching. As of tonight I won’t have that excuse anymore. Time to start messing with ugly research grant application forms again …
Worst of it is I lost my very easy overtime hours, so I didn’t wind up with a net raise. I don’t know what it’s like at your school, but at mine there was zero pressure for me to publish when I was “only” an instructor. Now I’m under a threatened gun, but I haven’t yet figured out how real the threat is.
Time to advocate for the Taiwan ‘spots of interest’. Jk. But not being able to travel out of Taiwan has put a speed dial to my moving out of Taiwan call. I can live here but I can’t bear to spend ALL my free time here.
This year I’ve become much more enthusiastic about cycling in the mountains. If that hadn’t happened, I’d be pretty despondent about my first full summer in Taiwan in well over a decade.
Mind you, if you live in Taipei it’s pretty easy to get to nice mountain rides. Does not apply in Kaohsiung I think. Certainly didn’t apply when I lived in Tainan.
Broader point: finding something to be enthusiastic about is good. Most of the year I’m too busy to “need” hobbies, but this summer, yup, I’m absolutely going to need them.
Yes, I’m also under pressure to get published. Been working on a research project/ paper for almost 3 years. It’s under journal review and will get sent back sometime this summer for feedback on suggested revisions, so that’ll keep me busy for a couple weeks (assuming it’s not rejected outright).
Well done getting it to the review stage - but oof on the timing for this summer. So you’re at a stage when you may have a lot more work on it, or you may only have a little more work on it, and you don’t know when that work is going to arrive. All of which makes it rather difficult to start on any new projects!
(You do know that most likely they’ll want a lot more work done, and that work will be time-consuming but kind of pointless, and they’ll tell you this 48 hours before the new semester starts in September, right? Sod’s law and all that.)
Dude, how can you say that? You don’t have a copy of War & Peace lying around for a rainy three month weekend? You don’t have a copy of the 7+ hour film version of War & Peace lying around? You don’t even have a copy of Teach Yourself Russian lying around?
Even without Tolstoy’s help, there are still sooo many ways to alleviate boredom. @discobot quote
You see? Surely you must at least have a copy of a Phelps book like The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement: A Study in Eighteenth Century Literature lying around, no?