rats, rats, and more rats . . .

Man, I'm such a sucker. . .

Of course work called two more times today about extra students. But All morning, I was good, I was focused, I didn't answer my phone. . . When I felt ready, I called back fully intending to refuse indignantly and deliver a verbal beat down to my coworkers who obviously think I have no life outside the office . . . (There are many ways in which I have no life, but a lack of things I need to do when I'm not in that lousy basement is not one of them. . .)

Did it happen that way? Of course not. The person who kept calling me had the nerve to be in a meeting when I finally called back, so I end up talking to my colleagues, the ones actually asking the favors. It's much easier to refuse a middle man. As a result, I now have 4 more students. I'm less than thrilled about this; they better be good students.

Moral of the story: No matter what, do not return phone calls if you don't want to be suckered, conned or emotionally manipulated. Especially do not return calls if you are the sort of person who is prone to being suckered, conned or otherwise manipulated. Wait until deadline has passed and then apologize profusely for not getting back in touch in time. One of these days, I will figure this out in practice as well as in theory.

My sole consolation in all of this is that hopefully someone somewhere is keeping track of all these good deeds (and overlooking my initial unwillingness to participate). It would be one thing if there weren't 47 other things on my plate right now--then I'd probably fuss but get over it pretty quickly. These 47 other things, however, make it tough because I'm already feeling like I'm wound too tightly. I hate being uber-stressed, and I resent having that feeling compounded by other people's drama. I'm one of those people who absorbs the energy of those around me, so my job can be especially stressful because students all come in with this heightened sense of urgency and I become infected with that urgency much like a virus or the common cold. I need to work on building up my emotional immune system, I guess. It may be the only way I'm going to survive this whole ordeal.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm wondering why it is that my neighbor feels the spontaneous urge to belt out "Holiday" by Madonna in the middle of the afternoon. To my knowledge it is not an actual holiday. If you've perused my list of random factoids, you know that I have an aversion to other people singing along to music--even if they can actually sing and I like the music they are singing. While my neighbor's voice isn't bad (but he is rather loud), I don't care for Madonna. It seems that now he's moved on to Morrisey. I usually like Morrisey (at least when he's coming from my stereo). I DO NOT like my neighbor's random fits of spontaneity.