Change of Season

We were visiting a friend who is a tenured professor of a far more technical field than mine, she can still where a 2 piece bathing suit without shame, her children are brilliant and this is where she took us snow-shoeing since I was too wimpy to ski. And she is a year (or so) younger than I am so there's no hope of catching up.

But catching up is not where my "career" (and even with quotes I use that term loosely) is going right now. It's not a punishment (I'm told) but I will only be advising, not teaching, in the fall. New (actual) faculty (as opposed to limited part time adjunct me) will get my (mine mine mine) class. In the spring I will be teaching an undergraduate class. This is actually all perfectly reasonable and fair. In fact, it's more than fair all things considered. And it isn't my class anyway. These are just feelings. Limited part time feelings. Do other professors go home and cry? Or at least cry on the way home?

Or would they if their day started out like mine with their mothers telling them they (the mothers) should move back home so the 5 year old won't see them "this way", and then crying... and then telling the (probably tenured) professor they were completely out of Serenity pads (the name has actually changed but notice I hate change) and the 5 year olds must now be dropped off early with a neighbor to allow for enough time to get these necessities and Milk Way bars to prove that they (the professors) do still love their mothers even though they huffed a little over trying to fit this in and still make it to a meeting and when they ran in the house with these purchases their mother was asleep so they had to just give instructions to the son who had had a seizure the night before last to take care of his grandmother and check with some other neighbors to be sure someone would be home since their spouse was out of town and they wouldn't be able to answer the phone and advise and lecture and all that before getting home very late? Would they? Do I sound pitiful enough? Do I?

But the truth is this change (my job, not the name of the pads) is probably good (and not even permanent) . Still, I avoid change on principle -not to mention on the simple basis of fear -only to be surprised as I was with the snow shoeing at the amazing views and wonder of it all and the sure knowledge that on my own I'd be lost and freezing to death.