As in, I’m leaving later today for my 25 hour trek across the oceans to visit a country I’ve never been to on a continent I’ve never visited.  I’m so excited!  I’m also freaking out!

Months ago, a colleague proposed that I join her study abroad program since I wasn’t offering my London program this summer.  ”Absolutely!” was my response, of course, and the wheels starting turning.  We got enough students; she made the plans; and off we go.

We’ll be there for the rest of the month, staying in one place for the majority of the program.  I’ll be teaching a literature class and leading an independent study, as well as serving as an assistant to my colleague whenever necessary.  I know my material but she knows everything else, so I’m definitely following her lead!

The bags are packed: one suitcase of my things, one duffel bag with clothes to donate to the local village, a backpack and a tote.  I’ve run through the checklist, brainstormed with friends and gone through my bags several times, so I think I have everything I need.  I’m not ready, as far as teaching goes, but I have a very long plane ride and time once we reach our destination, to get myself together in that regard.  

I am so glad I’m doing this coming off sabbatical.  I would be a hot mess if I was trying to finish the semester and preparing to leave the country.  The week has been crazy enough, but at least I’ve been able to spread out all the tasks rather than having to do everything at the last minute.

I hope to post while I’m there, at least to share some pictures.  We should have an internet connection – and electricity – but there’s no guarantee.  So, if you don’t hear from me for the next month, wish me well and cross your fingers that I get to see a real giraffe!

SG came for a visit this weekend.  It was a quick one – in late Friday night, out early Saturday night –  so it feels like we didn’t do much more than eat and sleep.

Admittedly, it was a little strange to have him “visit” his (old) partner in his old home.  There’s the ease of knowing he’s familiar with the people we see, the places we eat, the things we do juxtaposed with the difficulty of reintegrating him into the day-to-day after so much time away.  Maybe that gets easier with more practice.

Really, we are just learning how to do this relationship long distance.  With me on sabbatical this year, we had a grace period; we didn’t have to figure out how to be apart for more than a month at a time – and we’ve done that in the past with my travel to London.  That grace period is coming to an end, though; we have the summer but, this fall, it’s the beginning of long distance as real life.

We’re trying to keep as close as possible.  We talk every night, even if only to say a quick hello and good night.  We text and email during the day if something occurs to us.  I don’t know if we can keep that regularity up when the semester starts, especially with our divergent schedules (he’s the morning person, I’m the night owl), but we can definitely try.

Because it’s so easy to fall into the routine of not being in a relationship.  He’s there, somewhere in the background, but not a part of life I’m living every day.  We end up doing all the dishes, all the grocery shopping, all the TV viewing, all the shower scrubbing, all the going out with friends as two separate individuals rather than a couple.  In general, I’m all for individuality and doing things separately, but long term, I don’t think it’s a viable day-to-day strategy for either of us.

Little did I know I’d come to personify the two body problem!

Honestly, I rarely cook anymore.  I’m not sure when I got so lazy/busy/uninterested but, these days, my kitchen has cobwebs, my dishes are dusty and my food is packaged.  Pathetic.

I can still cook, though, and I do enjoy fixing something tasty for my friends. I’m a sucker for compliments about my cooking, so potlucks are a good motivator for me to putter in the kitchen.

This afternoon, I made sausage, spinach and cheese grits (although I suppose you could call it polenta if you’re feeling fancy) and brownies for a get-together with girlfriends.  Based on how little I brought home, I can still manage to make edible food in my forlorn kitchen.

The kids especially liked the brownies.  In my humble opinion, my homemade brownies made from a family recipe definitely taste better than those from a box; little fingers must agree, since they were making their way to the brownie plate all night.  The highest compliment was from a friend’s 6-year-old: “These are good.  I think I should take four home with me.”

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of exercise.  You don’t have to convince me of its many benefits or prove that I’ll live longer if I’m active or embarrass me for my sedentary lifestyle.  I know all that, intellectual that I am, but I still hate it.

I know all the tricks: integrate it into your day, find something you enjoy, work out with a friend, reward yourself when you achieve a goal.  I just don’t respond to them very well.  I can always find something better to do, I don’t enjoy anything that equals exercise, my friends are just as bad as I am and I don’t do well with reward and punishment.

Yes, my parents pointed out long ago that I am a very stubborn girl.  Imagine me at 5 (shudder).

I suppose exercise is much like flossing.  I don’t particularly enjoy that, either, but since I’d like to keep my teeth as long as possible, I’ll floss.

In the past year, I have  packed on the weight like a groundhog preparing for hibernation.  My lifestyle hasn’t helped – eating, sitting and so forth – but the meds and my aging metabolism make for a dangerous cocktail.  I’m too heavy, it’s bad weight and it’s not healthy.  Add to that, I can’t fit into my clothes and I feel about as attractive as the aforesaid groundhog.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I ended up going to Zumba.  It’s everything I hate, given my antipathy toward exercise, lack of rhythm  and deep-seated fear of making an idiot of myself in front of strangers.  However, I can tell it’s a workout, given how I feel during and afterward, and I’m going with friends who are just as miserable as I am (physically, anyway; they enjoy the dance aspect).

So far, I’ve made it to four sessions in the last two weeks.  The test is whether I can do it – or anything active, for that matter – when the fall semester arrives and I’m back on a regular, awful schedule.  My ever-expanding butt says I should try very hard.

We have a new online university-wide system in place now to “help” faculty with travel.  I’m all in favor of doing things online versus our typical paper-in-duplicate process.  I am not in favor of a system that makes everything even more bureaucratic and complicated than it already was.  Multiple screens – multiple 36 digit account numbers – allocation determination – appending of receipts even when you don’t request reimbursement: this does not make life easier for me.  I’m glad it helps somebody somewhere but it sure as hell isn’t me.

I always find interesting the reactions of others when women speak up.  Of course, by women, I mean me, mostly, but it does apply in the general sense.

In calling BS on a colleague this week, I started a little storm of conversational responses that ended up with me in the Head’s office explaining the situation.  It sounds rather like being called to the principal’s office but it was all quite calm.  I explained the current situation, providing some necessary context; the Head agreed with my reading of the current situation, urging my use of different language in future interactions with my colleague.  We parted on perfectly fine terms and I went about my day.

It took a few hours for me to process exactly what had happened in that office.  I didn’t take offense when my Head gave me a slight rap on the knuckles regarding my wording and tone – my mother also told me I’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar (although I tend to favor a fly swatter when it comes to irritating flies) – although I did defend what I had to say and why I had to say it.  He took no offense at that, agreeing that I was in the right in this particularly situation.

So, the issue was not what I said, but how I said it.  Yet I read my emails over and over again, trying my best to be firm, clear and polite; I won’t claim that I wasn’t addressing a particular person’s bad behavior but I did my best to do so nicely and without name calling.  Tone is always a difficult commodity in written expression, of course, and I’m sure the readers injected what they know of me into my correspondence, perhaps generating my typical sarcastic wit in their mind’s ear.

But I wonder, would my Head have made that same comment to a male colleague?  If a male professor had addressed this situation using my same words, would he have had an unseemly “tone” in his communications?

My Head and I are somewhat similar in our communicative styles – calling a spade a spade, expecting action rather than digression, cutting to the chase – and my recent communication displays that exact style.  People have often commented that we’re rather similar in how we talk, what we say and how express ourselves.  One difference in our interactions, however, is that I’m a she and he’s a he.

I’m well aware that women who speak out and up are judged very differently than men who do the same.  It’s not as if this is a response I’m facing for the first time; being an intelligent women with ideas and opinions means I’ve encountered distaste for my tone quite often in the past.  Perhaps I’m reading too much into the situation – perhaps I am too sharp-tongued to be the pleasant colleague I think I am –  but I suspect not.

And that doesn’t make me angry so much as it makes me sad.

I’ve discovered one benefit of having tenure: calling colleagues on their BS.

Granted, I haven’t exactly suffered in silence these last six years.  As my mother often says, I do not suffer fools gladly.  I don’t consider myself a particularly mean or rude person, and I do know when to keep my mouth shut, but I also believe in speaking up.  So, tenure hasn’t unleashed any latent aspect of my personality.  I’m just willing to admit how tired I am of people’s BS now and do something about it.