You will find me in the back with the white headband on. Karl is next to me. :)As for the "work ethic" part of this post....just a little bit of nighttime musing on my part. Tonight Karl and I were talking about how we both feel extremely tired from all of the work we've been doing lately, and how it just seems to keep piling on....to the point where our house is a mess because we barely have time to sit down and pay the bills, let alone clean. I thought this weekend might provide a little bit of much-needed relief (i.e., sit at home and do absolutely nothing and love every minute of it), but alas, I have work obligations Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. I can guarantee you after that all I'm going to want to do is take a nice long nap, not clean the house! I told Karl that I'm ready for the winter break so that we can start all over again with the spring semester, and naturally things will be a little bit calmer at the beginning of the semester and then grow from there.
Then I thought of something else - the reason we feel so darn tired from all of this work is because we are back in the Midwest, where the common work ethic is MUCH greater than out West. I'm not saying anything negative about California (hey, maybe they've got it all figured out...), but the fact is that the work ethic there and the work ethic here are completely different. In California I would get to work around 8:30
a.m., leave around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m., do a little work at home in the evenings, and that was it. And the funny thing was, even with that seemingly "light load", I felt like I was working more than everyone else I knew! I probably said the phrase, "How does anyone get anything done out here?" at least once a week, if not once a day. In Indiana things are completely different. On a typical day I get to school between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. and I get home around 7:00 p.m. every night. Granted, that includes at least an hour-long workout at some point in the day, but still. I'm working that much and still coming home to do at least an average of three more hours of work every night. And I don't even think I'm the hardest working person in my department by far. The really hard workers don't even take a break to work out. Me? I'd go nuts if I didn't have my daily workouts. They keep me sane.
It's a whole other ballgame in the Midwest, and even though I'm tired and sometimes feel overwhelmed, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love being here, I love my job, and I love working hard. It's how I was raised, it's what I know how to do. When things get too easy I become restless and seek out something to work on (if you know me well, you've probably witnessed some of those seek-outs!) I guess I just feel guilty sometimes because I don't know that my family and friends actually understand how much I work and why I don't always answer emails, phone calls, etc. I'm sure other people are just as busy as me, but I seem to carry a lot of guilt over the little things like those I just mentioned. And lately, when I have a few minutes free, I just want to spend them by myself, with Karl, or doing silly things like looking at Facebook.
So that's all for tonight. BACK TO WORK! (No joke).
Then I thought of something else - the reason we feel so darn tired from all of this work is because we are back in the Midwest, where the common work ethic is MUCH greater than out West. I'm not saying anything negative about California (hey, maybe they've got it all figured out...), but the fact is that the work ethic there and the work ethic here are completely different. In California I would get to work around 8:30
a.m., leave around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m., do a little work at home in the evenings, and that was it. And the funny thing was, even with that seemingly "light load", I felt like I was working more than everyone else I knew! I probably said the phrase, "How does anyone get anything done out here?" at least once a week, if not once a day. In Indiana things are completely different. On a typical day I get to school between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. and I get home around 7:00 p.m. every night. Granted, that includes at least an hour-long workout at some point in the day, but still. I'm working that much and still coming home to do at least an average of three more hours of work every night. And I don't even think I'm the hardest working person in my department by far. The really hard workers don't even take a break to work out. Me? I'd go nuts if I didn't have my daily workouts. They keep me sane. It's a whole other ballgame in the Midwest, and even though I'm tired and sometimes feel overwhelmed, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love being here, I love my job, and I love working hard. It's how I was raised, it's what I know how to do. When things get too easy I become restless and seek out something to work on (if you know me well, you've probably witnessed some of those seek-outs!) I guess I just feel guilty sometimes because I don't know that my family and friends actually understand how much I work and why I don't always answer emails, phone calls, etc. I'm sure other people are just as busy as me, but I seem to carry a lot of guilt over the little things like those I just mentioned. And lately, when I have a few minutes free, I just want to spend them by myself, with Karl, or doing silly things like looking at Facebook.
So that's all for tonight. BACK TO WORK! (No joke).
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