Balance

I can't believe we have only one week and a couple of days left until Spring Break. I'm looking forward to Spring Break, even though I'm not taking any time off (I'm trying to save vacation days for the summer). But that week will give me a chance to catch up on some work, get ahead on some other things and be able to leave the office at a reasonable time. It'd be nice to get back home around 5 or 6 pm. Usually, I don't get back home until 10 or 11 pm - sometimes even later than that. There are just too many meetings and events at night. But the thing is, those are the things that are fun.

My supervisor recently did my 6-month evaluation and, not very surprisingly, she commented on how I need to work on balance. I mean, she's right. I don't really have balance. I had all these plans at the beginning of the year - I was thinking about dance lessons or voice lessons or joining a choir or something like that; and then I just got busy. First semester, I was teaching our learning community class Monday evening, Tuesday evenings I had RHA, Area Council and Global Council meetings, Wednesdays we had staff meeting, and Thursdays I had some evening office hours and that was also usually the night we had programs and when the Invisible Children organization met. At the beginning of this semester, I wanted to limit the evenings when I have to work. At first things looked pretty promising. I wanted to work Tuesday and Wednesday nights and have Mondays and Thursdays to myself; but somehow that just didn't work. First, Area Council decided to change their meeting day to Thursdays. The RHA bid team meets Monday evenings. There are programs, random meetings and and and.

So then I decided not to start working until noon, since I was usually out and about that late. Sometimes that works out. But then there are days when we have morning meetings. Or sometimes I just can't fit all the meetings with students and colleagues into the evening, so I myself decide to schedule a meeting in the morning. Sigh. But it's definitely gotten a little better; there are days I sleep in until 10 am or even 11 am - not often, but even once a week is pretty amazing. :)

After getting my evaluation, I took some time to look at my schedule to see if there was anything I could cut. But the tough part is that the things I could potentially cut, are the ones that I like the most - like Global Council meetings or some of the programs my students have been organizing and helping RHA with their bid. Those are the things that don't even feel like work but are simply FUN.

And my students have been pretty damn amazing lately. Global Council made our student newspaper twice within the last week. They've pulled together some pretty awesome events with very little direction. Two of them are planning our End of the Year Banquet and they've been going way above and beyond expectations - from the beautiful invitations to planning to make awesome decorations. It's going to be a wonderful banquet.

I should probably still try to have a bit more balance in my life - maybe by actually following through on some of the plans I had - but it's hard to say no to students and it's even harder to say no when working with them is so much fun!