Finding my chill pill

Topics/tags: Rants, autobiographical

Here’s how I started tonight’s musing.

I’m on sabbatical. I should be calm and happy. My family even tells me that I look more relaxed and less sleep-deprived than I’ve been in a long time. So why am I grumpy [1]? It’s a bunch of things. I’ve spent nine months asking for the same corrections to the handbook; it shouldn’t be that hard to fix something so important. I see that an overreach by the Dean’s office in the review process has been reinstated; I thought we’d dealt with that last year. Way too many aspects of the new computer policies upset me, from a lack of shared governance, to insufficient notification, to a disregard for the needs of term faculty; today I heard from an associate dean that they don’t intend to do anything about those issues. Someone has imposed new limits on practica credits in the Music department, but not other departments; it strikes me that that kind of change in policy should have been discussed by the whole faculty. When I visited the awesome new Disability Resource Space, I saw a poorly designed office for support staff; we should treat our staff better than that. [2]

Many of these things others have also noticed. But some seem to be things that I’m the only one who notices. Does that mean that no one else cares? I don’t think so, but perhaps I am wrong.

I was intending to write a bit more, and then add something like I think I need a chill pill.

Instead, I went out for the evening. I had intended to go to the Writers@Grinnell reading, but I got the time wrong. I left home a bit before 7 pm; I discovered that it wasn’t scheduled to start until 8 pm. Since I had an hour to spare, I decided to watch the start of tonight’s volleyball match [3]. But I ended up enjoying the match and talking to friends I hadn’t had the chance to chat with for some time. It was an exciting match. I did not follow the lead of Justin Thomas at prior matches; stamping on the stands is not my style. Nonetheless, I cheered them on as best I could. I’m glad to be able to report that Grinnell won.

When I sat down to finish this musing, I realized that I was no longer in the mood to rant. It appears that I found my chill pill, at least for tonight: Getting out of the house, watching an exciting match, and talking to friends seems to have done the job. I should remember that the next time I’m upset.

What about all of those issues I mentioned. They haven’t gone away. I’ll probably rant about them in the future. For now, I don’t want to damage my mood. Check back another day.

Postscript: If you want more details on any of the issues I raised, you can wait until I’m in the proper mood. There’s also a small chance that I’d be willing to discuss them if you can track me down in person.

[1] Or curmudgeonly.

[2] I had some other issues I intended to mention, but I can’t recall what they are.

[3] I sometimes find myself writing volleyball game, but I’m pretty sure that the appropriate term is volleyball match. I suppose I also could have written a set or two.

Version 1.0 of 2019-09-12.