Wednesday, July 23, 2008

J & K + 8

I'm watching Jon and Kate plus Eight with MP1 and TH* and let me just say: OMG! omg, omg...I would need serious medication. I couldn't do it. BUT, I did iron 8 (eight) shirts this morning in an effort to NOT accomplish any real work (of the academic sort). Actually, I revised a letter this morning and I worked out and I made us all some lunch. But alas, I've now got to do some serious work, and watching J & K plus 8 reminds me that I have *nothing* to complain about.

*TH is taking an official "vacation day" from chairdom (it's our anniversary and we are going out for tapas tonight!), but he is still working non-stop on enrollment bs and all the usual complaints from every quarter and the peeeeeeoooooopppplllleeeee. Blech, you could not pay me enough to do that job. Along the same lines, you also could not pay me enough to consult for the company that keeps e-knocking at my door. Every year for about 5 years, now, they write and ask me to join their "group," which does legal work in my area of research. I know expert witnessing pays a lot, but the stress of the entire gig would kill the bonus $ for me. I didn't become an academic (and suffer through the tenure process) to start stressing myself out all over again and marching to other people's drums. Even for big $. I'll do "my part" in this domain of advocacy by means of academic research and writing. But, I would love to be a fly on the courtroom wall in some of these cases .

5 comments:

one art said...

Today is our anniversary! Um, okay, so the B is not here, but I got flowers. And his class all shouted through the phone at me.

Awww.

I hope you had good tapas. We always order too much.

auto ethnographer said...

Well, many congrats to you. And, yes, the tapas are always excellent.

one art said...

I meant to say, now that I reread, happy anniversary to y'all as well.

Did you go to Tapa the World? I like them, but they need to, um, renovate.

participant-observer said...

I would kill Kate. The hubby and I love watching it and I invoke her name whenever he accuses me of "nagging."

auto ethnographer said...

She may be a nagger, but having had the experience of making the transition between being the mother of one child, to the mother of two (and there is absolutely *no* comparison to having only one kid in terms of $, time, & sleep deprivation), I cannot imagine how the mother of 3 kids (much less 8) manages. I can remember thinking that going to the grocery store without loading a kid in and out of the car was the absolute height of personal freedom. This is why there were 4 years between my kids. (I highly recommend this age difference where managine the payment of college tuition is concerned.)