In a week I spend much less time working than I had thought, because a great deal of the work I do — work that blends somehow into university work — is actually on house and family. And almost all my work at work goes to teaching. I had thought the drain from research time was to service but it is to teaching. This is not because I have a high load but because we have an unstable situation, such that courses are always out of field and always new. It is one thing to teach in the fields where one reads, and quite another to teach outside. And although I spend as much time or more on teaching as I technically should, my teaching could use still more of a time investment to be good and I am not saying this out of perfectionism — I am saying it because of the range I am assigned.
So I am efficient on teaching, but I have a lot of it, and I am efficient on housework, but I have a lot of it. I am inefficient on family; small tasks take a great deal of time and energy and they also take research, writing and soul energy that is siphoned directly from research. This profile of duties shows why I feel oppressed in all too traditional a feminine role, and why it takes me so much time to transform myself into the person who does research. I spend a lot of time and do a lot of work changing myself each day, into the research and writing oriented person I need to be but dare not except in secret, and then into another, much less challenging public persona. The fact that I transform myself into this other persona is a problem to be liquidated.
I am not sure how to liquidate it yet, here, but it is why I liked graduate school and working at my R1s: women had rights and I felt very different than I do elsewhere, and was much more confident and bright. In any case we may have our teaching loads raised due to budget cuts and I am going to try to take advantage of this to get my teaching range cut down. We can all win: I will teach more student credit hours, but in a way that will take me less time and contribute more directly to my research. Watch me fail to get this deal. I am still going to try.
Now let us review this week’s work:
Day 1 – 9 hours TEACHING … fitting in a touch of research, but only a touch
Day 2 – 7 hours (time cut short by family issues) TEACHING and SERVICE … fitting in only a touch of research
Day 3 – 9 hours TEACHING … fitting in only a touch of research
Day 4 (day off) – 2.5 hours – SERVICE and RESEARCH, yay
Day 5 (cut short by family issues) – .5 hours RESEARCH, yay
Day 6 – 2 hours RESEARCH, yay
That is six days, with 30 hours of work done, so really I only averaged five hours. This is shocking but then again one could divide by four, since there were two weekend days, and I still only averaged 7.5.
This is fascinating. I just have to get more efficient about the family things — house needs work and I am already efficient — not let the teaching expand further — and I will have Time. And the Crosby article on which I have posted twice talks about the fetishization of Time (fetishization is my word) and my notes on it do not emphasize this enough; I must return to that article and post on it again.
Now we will see about work today. It is in red.
11-12: Reading for class that is also work Stupid Motivational Tricks would call work on the “scholarly base”
12-1: Lunch/write this post
1-2: Keep reading for that class
2-3: Family/house business
3-5: Keep reading for that class, interspersing this activity with work related phone calls and e-mail; post lecture notes
5-8: break; this is 4 hours so far
8-9: Gather more materials for that class
9-10:30 break, this is 5 hours so far
10:30-11:30 Research, yay!
That means six hours today and only thirty-six hours this week, which deserves a comment all on its own.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
That’s the thing. Because we academics can deal with family matters during the work day, we think that is a good thing. (More flexibility.) I had to spend a lot of time and effort on my divorce last year, for example. But it is not a good thing, because then work doesn’t get its due: there is no boundary between professional and personal and it gets exhausting. Figuring out where you are spending the time is good though. I suspect it’s because you are teaching peninsular that you are spending so much extra time on teaching.
Yes, in general I am not interested in the “flexibility” for that or for other reasons … it’s nice not to be stuck in a cubicle but I believe in using the work day for work. So it is important to militate against the “flexibility” fixation. I also believe in not letting “life” intrude on work and I realize this some people make a lot of excuses for it doing so. BUT if you allow yourself dedicated time in which to have what is called “life” (meaning deal with family problems) you can have work time, too, and even have it be sustaining. There is something about self respect here.
***
PLANNING NOTES FOR ME
Teaching — it is Peninsular but it is more the foreign language classes. They are incredibly time consuming and emotionally draining, and they give little back either psychically or intellectually. And TAs put in 20 hours a week on each one and that is with someone else doing the syllabus and other kinds of preparation. It is hard to compete and no, experience does not make it easier once you have the first year or two of experience. If I can get out of the basic FL classes and teach an in house version of Latin American History instead … since the position is frozen and they cannot get a real historian, anyway … it will save a lot of time.
House — one needs a spouse, seriously, and in the absence of one such should have an apartment or a lot of money and just hire the maintenance and repair out.
Family — my current problem is geriatric care management which is a heavy job. It interfaces with my issues with that generation, too, so it takes thought. And I sort of have to clear the decks in order to be able to do work, since I keep running into my father in work.
Method, 1 — What I USED to do was designate 40-60 hours per week as family free time: time in which I got to be a grownup, be myself. This broke down with Reeducation because I caught this C-PTSD or whatever it is I have. I unlearned the system of filtering out family silliness that I had constructred over the years. So I am vulnerable to these various triggers which make me vaguely dissociative or bring on some kind of flashback … and have to combat it. Despite not having this happen nearly so much as it used to any more, this makes me less good at controlling the workday than I once was (before I learned that “control” was a form of “denial” and that that was bad, etc.). I should bring back the concept of family free time.
Method, 2 — I am now in the beginning of geriatric care management with characteristics that resemble dementia but are not. This is raising some issues and requiring some diplomatic embassies to other family and to some authorities. Time consuming but done right it is helping me to free myself from First Education / Reeducation so it is almost like working on the “scholarly base” … I am not joking. This phase should pass, though — in fact, I think the past few weeks and this one are the key phase.
Ergo — Do designate 40-60 hours per week as adult time. Time in which I am not being a sister or a daughter — roles which in THIS particualr department I play all too much, anyway, and which were once required and are no longer.
“Familles, je vous hais.”
Dream last night: age 1.5. Being chased with a club by one parent while the other tries to trip me.