Dying batteries

The battery in one of our smoke alarms has been dying.  We knew the battery was dying, because the alarm was sending out chirping noises. In fact, it was chirping sporadically for days before we were able to identify the alarm with the dying battery.  It would chirp a few times in a row, and we'd go off on a quest to the basement to find it, and then it would stop chirping for the rest of the night.

Eventually we did find the alarm with the dying battery, and we replaced the battery and hung it back on the wall to do its smoke alarm thing.  But within a few days, it was chirping again.  Wrong battery.

I am a smoke alarm with a dying battery.

I was in Paris just a couple of weeks ago, attending an amazing conference, having the honor of speaking to a crowd of people, many of them well known internationally in my research area.  I returned home, jet lagged, to find myself a week behind in my grading, a week behind in my class preparation, a week behind in my administrative duties, a week behind in my family life, having missed a week of family work and family weekly ups and downs, a week behind in laundry and yard work.  Behind.  And there was no extra week of spare time in which to catch up.  So I crawled to bed exhausted, and woke myself up in a panic early in the mornings, to write research papers.  And in late night frustration, I turned back to editing my novel.  Ha!  That will show them!  And weekend video games.  New battery?

Chirp.

Our last day of classes is Wednesday.  That means I only need to prepare two more lectures.  I only need to grade 21 more assignments.  I have to finalize an exam for 650 and two exams for seven.  And organize lunch for 20.  And find a local hotel for the conference I'm organizing....  I can't even keep in my head all of the things I need to do this week.

Chirp chirp.

But I'm taking Thursday off, because this week is Jonathan's spring break.

And it one month, I am speaking at one more important conference, to honor my graduate advisor on his 60th birthday.  Many of the people who were in Paris will also be honoring my advisor, and so I need to speak about something new.  The something new I have in mind is a project I have been working on with a colleague in England, but that we haven't quite finished.  If I can get a good draft of a paper written within the next two weeks, I can comfortably speak about that project and impress my colleagues.  Otherwise....  Trouble.

Chirp chirp chirp.

Oh, and I need to pull together my file for promotion and tenure.  And a major grant application.

Chirp.

I need more video games.

In the book I read on the plane, flying through my sleeping time, the author reminded the world that it is boring to talk about how busy you are.  Because -- guess what -- the whole world is busy!  We are all busy, and your particular flavor of business is not particularly interesting.

I keep thinking about that, writing this post, and I agree.  My flavor of business is boring.  I'm bored myself, writing it, or I would be, if my heart would stop making that annoying chirping noise.  I have decided that I should probably delete the middle of this post and talk more about smoke alarms, and pull the whole analogy thing together that I started.

But I can't do it.  I can't delete the middle.  If I do, how will I remember all the things I'm supposed to accomplish this week?

Happy Spring Break to you, too.