things keep getting in the way

Of intellectual-type work: I have a part-time administrative job that pays pretty well, for the effort required, but now is a time of peak effort, including taking a day trip to campus Wednesday to put up colored flyers. I don't even get a staple gun to brandish menacingly at the undergraduates lining campus walkways, thrusting flyers of their own in my face. Or perhaps... perhaps the office I'm working for just happens to have a staple gun! In the meantime, a lot of trivial email exchanges are required.

Of self-respect and relaxation: paperwork for conference travel grants. The grant administered through the Dean's office is a 1-page application, with a line for my grad chair to sign off on it. The grant administered by the graduate student government is a 4-page application, with the additional requirements of an abstract, a letter of acceptance, and a letter of recommendation from a faculty member explaining how, precisely, the conference is "relevant to the student's professional development." I've filled this out three times, each time wondering whether it was worth enduring such petty, institutional-ego-boosting bureaucratic nonsense to get $300 of reimbursements. Unfortunately, the answer is always "yes."

Of eating a more vegetable-centered diet: My household received gifts of 4.5 lbs. frozen fish, 1 lb. crab meat, 1.5 lbs. frozen chicken, and 1.5 lbs. frozen pork this weekend. Because mothers = providers of protein.

Of more kvetching: Petula Clark on the Muppet Show.