Motivation..I Have None Today

Monday after Snowmaggedapocalypse

For the first time in seven days, I'm seated in my office at work. This should be a lovely thing for me. I was trapped at the house for five days with my parents. As many of my friends will tell you (and I will too), I adore my parents. They are awesome people. Five days in the same house, however, is a lot to ask of three adults who are all opinionated and set in their ways. To say I was happy to come to work today is an understatement.

Still, I got here, spent two hours with my students in the library as they were trained to use the library and the library website, and got back to the office in time for lunch. My diabolical plan---(1) to eat a hearty lunch of microwaved Rice-a-Roni and (2) to grade one of three batches of essays I need to have completed before next Sunday.

It is now ten minutes before my last class of the day. Guess which part of my diabolical plan I completed. It had nothing to do with essays and everything to do with how hungry I was. 

Desire-5000+              Motivation-0

Welcome to the Real Lives of Georgia Technical College Instructors!

So far, none of my co-workers are completely focused or motivated. We are all sort of slogging through today as we readjust to the real business of recouping two weeks of lost time.  In another day or two, we should be back to relative normal.

Misdirected Motivation

Before I completely claim no motivation at all, let me point out that I have eaten and done a Zentangle (yes, Rhonda, picture will follow). I did this during my second library instructional class with my 1010 students. 

It was either do this, or be completely unengaged.

The thing that is really cool about Zentangle is that it is a sort of meditative doodling. It takes away stress and strain and replaces it with calm. It makes me feel the way knitting makes me feel (happy and peaceful), and I can do it in a less obvious way than whipping out the needles. 

Anyway, I totally blame my friend, Rhonda, who is an artist and a dear friend. You should check out her artist's page on Facebook. Her work is amazing, and she does commissions. She doesn't know this (ok, now she does), but when I get my own place, I'm planning on ordering some of her paintings [Tree of Life, my dear]. Rhonda started doing Zentangle before Christmas and has incorporated it into her painting with really wonderful results.

So, as you can see, my motivation was more misdirected than nil. I drew a Zentangle. My day is complete!

The only other thing I've really been motivated to focus on is knitting pattern collecting. I go on Facebook during lunch and discover new afghan square patterns---FOR FREE! Free patterns put me on a sort of addictive spiral. I post them, I go check Ravelry, (THE website for knitting and crochet addicts like me), and if I really am wandering around, I'll go hit Pinterest. It's sad. No motivation for things like bad writing and disappointing essays, but give me patterns, and I can go for hours.

[BTW--you'll have to suffer through more of my knitting addiction if I start the afghan I'm sort of imagining in my head bwahahahaha!]

So, Is There a Point to This Post?

Uhhhhhh...not really. I just wanted to share that I am really wandering today. I guess some people would say I have ADD or ADHD or some other abbreviated thing that says that I'm not focused. (And before anyone decides to blast me in the comments below, I'm not making fun of anyone who may have this sort of issue. For some people it's real. I don't have these things. I'm just not focused today. That's all.) Coming off an entire week of being able to do what I want, when I want and stepping back into the structured world of classes and teaching and expectations is hard. If you made me choose between grading papers and watching House of Cards while knitting slippers for clients, guess which I'd go with?

I promise that I will put myself back together quickly and have a long grading session involving Thomas Dolby (my current favorite grading partner) and multiple cups of cinnamon tea (another current favorite). The papers will get done. I will move forward. I might even get that basic plan for the new chapters in the novel done (I hope).

Support is awesome, btw. Make sure to leave some kind comments and let me know if you recognize this lack of motivation.