Grrr!

It seems taking sick-time is the latest source of gripe/ridicule? “You’re always sick!” Hmm.

Well, I don’t have the luxury of living three miles, much less three blocks from work/class. I don’t even get paid enough to afford to live in the same TOWN! No, I have to live 13 miles away where $1000 a month gets you a safe/quiet apartment and not just a room with a hole to pee in. So right there I have a minimum of 30 minutes each way if I drive. It’s a full hour each way if I take the bus and train, plus 30 minutes of walking each way.

So already my days are typically 10.5 hours. Every day. But it’s not that simple when I have classes:

Each MWF I work 6.5 hours, plus have an hour for class. I’m on campus 8 hours plus two hours of transportation and an hour of walking normally. That’s 11 hours—not TOO bad.

Tuesdays, I have a 2-hour class on top of 9.25 hours of work, so I’m on campus from 8am to 7:30pm PLUS the usual hour of driving or two hours on the bus, plus the walking. Tuesdays range from 13 hours to 15 hours of PURE FUN!

Thursdays, I have no class, but work 8.75 hours plus the hour for driving or three hours for the bus and walking—that’s 14.25 total hours. And FYI, the walking is why I take the bus whenever I can, as it’s the only exercise I have time for.

Anyway, all this means my average week consists of 52.5 hours when I don’t have classes, or as many as 62.25 when I do. One class is a senior seminar: one 6+page RESEARCH paper per week. Trying to do these and other classwork at night, when it DOES work, means another three or four hours, leaving me maybe four hours of sleep on a good night.

What’s the first thing to do when you get sick? Get more rest. How do you do that if you’re not home 62.25 hours of the work week and your weekends are full of classwork, laundry, grocery shopping, and cleaning? You usually call out sick just to get rest.

So yeah, as long as I have sick days, I’m going to use them.

7 Replies to “Grrr!”

  1. LOL it would have to be vegetarian soup. 🙂 Right now it’s just allergies. I took Tuesday off because I had maybe two hours of sleep Monday night. Hard to sleep with Niagara coming out of your nose. Last week I had a cold on top of the allergies. We haven’t had any rain, so my allergies are worse than they’ve EVER been. Including back in Mississippi!

    For the most part, I’m just exhausted, and damn tired of pampered people who live in lala land questioning me. 🙂

  2. There will always be somebody to complain!!!

    Lucky me, I work in a shop with only 2 employees, so they know they need me and won’t irritate me.

    As for allergies…
    We’ve been having probs down here since November. With the crazy weather some plants started blooming then.
    Right now it’s the “hedge” which must be the new kudzu. It’s definitely taking over everywhere.

    As for the vegetarian soup… well I’ll have fresh vegetables in a few weeks in my garden.
    Spaghetti squash should be first, then sugar snap peas, then green beans, then okra and tomatoes and peppers and eggplant. I’m picking some of my lettuce and mesclun tonight!

    Jealous?

  3. Only about the okra and tomatoes. The rest I can live without. 😀

    Since I can find delicious tomatoes here all year (hydroponic/organic on the vine, from Canadian/European greenhouses usually)… I don’t miss a garden at all.

    But okra is non-existent here, except frozen whole.

Leave a Reply to JoannaCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.