Mixed feelings

[liv]

Things that are pleasing:

1. I have given my two lectures with a degree of success. That was believe it or not the first opportunity I've had to give university-level lectures in my own professional subject. A good group, tiny (officially 6 people but not all of them show up), but really keen. That meant that the lectures were more or less large tutorials or small seminars, but I got lots of good and interesting questions. I'm generally proud of myself.
   
   
2. This means I can now catch up on sleeeeeeeeeep and start attending to the rest of my life.
   
   
3. I had lovely friends supporting me through the painful process of recovering from the worst deadline mismanagement I've ever committed. Thank you all so much, especially darcydodo and cartesiandaemon and rysmiel, for holding my hand and for refusing to accept that needing my hand held makes me pathetic and worthless.
   
   
4. I am blessed with a particularly wonderful beau, who is very cuddly and fun to talk to.
   
   
5. I have lovely, accomplished, enthusiastic bar mitzvah pupils, and generally an excellent Jewish community.
   
   
6. I have booked flights to come to England for Pesach.
   
   
7. Teeeeeeeeeeea

1. The lectures were nothing like as good as they could have been. The first two thirds was reasonably decent, the last part was mostly bluffing. But at least I can manage the bluffing fairly well; the experience was a little like going into an exam you haven't specifically prepared for, but where you're confident you have enough general knowledge of the subject to manage acceptably.
   
   
2. I was reduced to staying up most of Monday and Tuesday nights to get the lectures finished. Apart from the fact that I feel wrecked, it's also worrying that my time management has fallen apart so badly that I am procrastinating over something I love doing as much as I love teaching.
   
   
3. I have been neglecting my friends except to complain at them briefly, and I miss people.
   
   
4. I haven't even had time to talk to or correspond with my beau recently.
   
   
5. There's the big showcase bar mitzvah coming up, with the visiting rabbi and all kinds of stuff that I am behind on organizing. And the community in general need so much of me they're all but drinking my blood.
   
   
6. The flights are with evil Ryanair, and in spite of that, not even cheap, bah.
   
   
7. The rest of my teaching responsibilities are such that I can't take time off at Pesach at all, I have to be back in Stockholm on Monday. So I'll miss Screwy's anarchist seder, and all the relaxed socializing I was hoping to do during the week of Pesach.
   
   
8. It's only just over two weeks to Pesach! Aaaaaaaaaah!

Comments

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Talking about Pesach. I have to go to College on the second day of Pesach. I am not very strict with the 2nd and 8th day because I actually can't afford having so many days off. I either need to earn money or go to college. The assignments are not that easy. They are also very long. I know it is just a diaspora tradition and now just a custom. We know when Pesach starts. I have no idea what to eat for lunch. I do not keep the silly ashkenazi custom with the kitniot. (Rabbi Chaim Wener says it does not make any sense. Rabbi Jeremy Gordon things it is silly.). Therefore I eat rice and kitniot but never cold. As falafel sandwich is out what can I eat? Even if there were a microwave I don't want to make my own dishes tref. So I won't use it either.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Remember: there are people with too much spare time. You are on the correct side of that divide.

And, if ever I pick up my cartooning pen in a really silly mood, I will draw the steam-and-plutonium powered machine for transferring the spare time from all those undesirables to us.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I completely understand your frustration with the lack of time to do justice to all your commitments, because I feel like that constantly. If I ever find a real solution, I'll be sure to let you know.

An anarchist seder sounds awesome, I'd want to go to that myself! Hope you can find the time to enjoy Pesach, despite the hectic pace of your life right now.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

Since you eat beans, you could make a bean salad or something of the sort. Substantial, tasty, and Pesachdik.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I would recognises "too much spare time" if it bit me; I can easily see how I would fill an extra, say, eighty hours in the week, even if they magically didn't need eating and sleeping as well as regular weekly commitments. It's a thing I sometimes think about as I am falling asleep.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

*long hug* Very glad to be able to help in some little way; I am unlikely to be on chat much this next little while, as I have a visiting daharyn this weekend and redbird the next, but will be thinking of you and will say hi if I am on. I hope this drastic overscheduling does ease off in a bit, yes ?

refusing to accept that needing my hand held makes me pathetic and worthless.

Well, yes, because the inverse is fairly solidly down among my axioms.

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestion but I am not a salat person. I don't like beans cold. It is really hard thinking of something. I might feast on bananas and crips.

[liv]

Yeah, I'm going to end up travelling actually on chag, which I'm not happy about but it's that or miss the Seder altogether. I follow the Reform custom in not keeping second days, and certainly not keeping kitniot, ugh. I agree entirely that we know with practically millisecond accuracy when festivals start these days, we don't need the safeguard of keeping a second day just in case.

I think Pesach should be about avoiding leavened bread (and eating fresh spring foods), not about being ridiculously obsessive over food while eating stuff out of packets that closely approximates bread products while being technically kosher. It sounds like if you're stuck in College you're going to have to put up with a cold lunch on that day. I sometimes live on jacket potatoes if I need to eat out during Pesach, but I don't know if that's a useful option for you.

[liv]

Thank you. I feel at the moment that lack of time is only part of my problem, or rather that I'd have more time if I ran my life more efficiently. But it's also true that being as busy as I am means I need a certain amount of time to simply unwind and recover, and there's no point feeling guilty about every hour spent not being actively productive.

I think the anarchist seder is going to be really awesome, especially with Screwy running it! He wants to discuss all the embarrassing bits of the Bible and liturgy, and take the theme of whether holiness and religious purity are opposing forces to freedom. And from what I know of them they're a good crowd, heavily intellectual in the way that a certain subset of anarchists can be. Passover is one of those times that ought to be really radical, but it can be hard to do anything radical with something where people have strong nostalgic connections to what they did as children. So I have a lot of respect for the anarchists' project.

[liv]

Thank you again for being a wonderful friend. And thank you for chatting to me to bounce at me about having a good time with visitors, it was lovely to talk to you and bask in vicarious happiness.

I'm quite taken aback by such a vehement insistence that leaning emotionally on friends is the right thing to do. I need to think about that more, because it's such a big thing for me to be independent and take care of myself, I do struggle with asking for help. I wouldn't have such a problem if I were dealing with something objectively hard, but it's hard not to feel ashamed of succumbing to mere procrastination and then panicking about it. I do think that feeling ashamed isn't very helpful, and it really means a lot that you are not only supportive, but don't think worse of me for needing support.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I'd have more time if I ran my life more efficiently. But it's also true that being as busy as I am means I need a certain amount of time to simply unwind and recover, and there's no point feeling guilty about every hour spent not being actively productive.

You can't see how fast my head is nodding here!

As to the anarchist seder, hopefully if it goes well, they'll do another one next year?