My boss is still signed off work with a long term back injury. The additional work that this involves isn't just about time, though extra students to tutor and additional lectures do eat into that commodity. It's also about making decisions and trying to take into account what I think she'd want to do, knowing that she and I have different views on almost everything, but work in a complementary way. Only a couple of weeks ago, another colleague and I had to negotiate a major restructuring of some of our courses, and I felt all the time as if I were arguing two opposing positions, my boss' and mine.
Around the same time, I met a new man and all that seemed to be going ra
ther swimmingly, but alas, he backed off suddenly at the weekend. Two weeks of romance and French cinema and Scrabble disintegrated overnight into - well, just Scrabble. Now don't get me wrong, I like Scrabble. But I like all the rest of the stuff as well. Which reminds me of today's silly story...
As part of a rather boozy Scrabble game, I removed my glasses so I could read the dictionary, and put them on the floor behind me. (No comments about "why don't you get telescopic arms?" please.) I suppose it was inevitable that I'd sit on them. I did, and the lenses popped out. So this morning I went off to visit the nearest decent optician. The lenses are three years old, and the edges are badly chipped, so this seemed like a very good time to replace them. I explained that I'd had my eyes tested last time at a chain store in a local mall, and the receptionist rang through to ask for my prescription. Then they took the prescription and my specs (temporarily mended) into the workshop.
Several minutes later the girl re-emerged looking perplexed. "These are your specs, Madam?" I said they were. She turned to the receptionist: "Are you certain you took down the prescription correctly?" Then "These specs are not made up to this prescription." I explained that they were three years old, so there may have been a little deterioration, but it was clear that she meant that the discrepancy wasn't to be so easily explained away. In the end, an eye test established that the prescription was close to accurate, but that I have been wearing specs with the wrong lenses for three years. Perhaps that explains my jaundiced view of the world?
The ups and downs of my life were illustrated in an even more vivid way at lunchtime today. Several months ago I was invited to a symposium in Canada that is of crucial relevance to my research, and I applied for a British Academy travel grant. I had a strong application and good references, so I was very distressed to received the letter this morning telling me that I had not been awarded the grant.
I'd convinced myself that I would be able to go, and this new disappointment was rather hard to bear in my present general state of feeling sorry for myself. Without funding, that kind of travel was impossible. My son's Dad had agreed to pay half of his fare so he could go with me, but the cost of my fare, accommodation and food, without any grant funding, would be more than I could afford.
I spent the rest of a busy morning of tutorials and phone calls feeling rather horrid after that, and every time I started an email to the organisers to try and explain that I couldn't come, the phone rang again. I was trying to work out if I could do a paper and send it to the Symposium for someone else to read, and other equally desperate measures. But I didn't manage to send an email, and decided to compose something suitable after lunch.
Eventually at lunchtime one of my best friends and I went out for a sandwich and to bewail my bad fortune. It's a grey, miserable, slightly drizzly day here, so we sat in a cafe in the park, and as geeky people always do, we started comparing our new mobile phones. Mine has full internet access, so I was demonstrating how I could check my email when I saw one from the Symposium organisers. And this was when I read:
"Debbie, we want to make sure you and your son arrive in ___ for the Symposium. We would be delighted if the grant you have applied for comes through, but if not, we want you to be at the Conference. We want to be able to count on you for some aspects of your work, either in a workshop or in your own presentation, or both, depending upon which other papers come in."
...followed by an offer to accommodate and feed me and my son, and to pay my air fare as well. This isn't a funded conference, either: the organising committee have come up with the offer out of generosity and respect for my work. I was so touched - I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
And finally, another high:
Today my mortgage was completed I've bought my ex out, raised a mortgage in my own name and signed on the dotted line to give them a chunk of my earnings until I'm in my dotage. In return, for the first time in my whole life, I own my house - not as someone's partner or spouse but in my own right. It feels so awfully grown up! I can now order that kitchen (Maple, I decided. And the sink is still to die for, darlings.)
