the trouble with women

I have a hard time with jobs that go on endlessly and don't have clear cut end points. I guess what this means, literally, is that I am a person who does better with deadlines than without them because when I have all the time in the world to do something, I take all the time in the world to do it. I like things that begin and end neatly.

This is something that makes teaching difficult for me. A year is too long. Even a semester is too long. My desk gets messy. If only I could get things done quickly, all at once, with no distractions, they'd get done so much better, so much more efficiently, and so much more thoroughly. I like it when a teaching year ends and I can safely sweep off the top of my desk into a garbage can.

This is what I like about the writing projects, for the most part, because they come with deadlines and usually when I'm finished writing them, they go to someone else's desk for production and I never have to look at them or think about them again. And so I'm irritated by the fact that one of the safety courses keeps coming back to bug me again and again. I finished writing it in August, and it's still pestering me. It drives me crazy when people phone me to ask me questions that are answered in the writing. Knowing that they are going to have to read the document anyway, why don't they just go ahead and do that first? It's a pain, trying to answer their questions, after I've already swept my desk.

Right now I feel like too many things are going on at once. Yesterday's meeting was encouraging in the fact that the clients are only looking for a half hour course. The last one I wrote was nearly five hours long, so this one seems significantly more manageable. However, the other writing project that I've been brought in on is happening simultaneously and I already feel confused trying to keep helicopters separate from investment fraud, while the Safety Course continues to nag me for answers.

(Shawn always says that he wants me around in case of the apocalypse because from all this course writing, I know how to drive snowploughs, build scaffolding, administer all types of emergency first aid, catch money launderers, build roads, drive schooners, and make emergency landings in a helicopter. This doesn't even scratch the surface of all my many talents. Of course all this knowledge is entirely theoretical and if I was actually called upon to DO any of these things, I would likely kill or injure many people.)

And while trying to separate my helicopters from my criminals, K says there's a third writing project coming down the pipe. With three simultaneous writing projects, I am already quite confused. But when I add to that my Drama classes that I'm teaching, the student teacher I am mentoring, and the play I am directing, I feel as though I no longer know which direction I'm facing from one minute to the next.

The problem is that I always take on more than I should. I get bored and feeling useless when I'm not doing something. And yet, when I'm at the hub of too much activity with too many people asking for my help, I feel irritated and panicked.

I think I have about two more days before the hurricane really hits, so I'm trying to enjoy a few more breaths before I no longer have time for that.

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