Some Days are Crap Days

Frustrating day at work today. Things are happening that directly affect me and my group but we are being shut out of the process. I don't know why we're being treated so poorly, but it's got us mad, and I just feel...mad.

On a bright note, one of my masters students successfully defended her thesis today. She did an awesome job and it was probably the smoothest defense I've ever seen.

On a dark note, I spent literally the entire day in meetings and did not get a single lick of "real" work done. The fear, the dark dark fear (you're not writing enough, you're not going to get tenure) always comes very close to the surface on days like today. How is it that I worked a full day, am completely exhausted, and yet did not move myself even one centimeter closer to tenure?

I am so sick of living in constant fear of losing my job. And I have 2 more years of this.

Home. Making spicy cajun pasta with vegetables for dinner and the kids are clinging to my legs and screaming for me to hold them. It is not safe. The pan is very hot (to blacken the vegetables). Jake has to drag them off into the sunroom and shut the door.

I am angry because the pasta sauce is not thickening up the way it's supposed to. It has broth, white wine, and some cream. But it isn't thickening. And I'm too harried / rushed to do what I should do, which is whisk some cornstarch with cold water and add it to the sauce to thicken it. Instead I dump all of the vegetables back in and the sauce and then angrily stir it around as it fails to thicken.

And then Nora WHINES and whines as I'm trying to get dinner on the table and I'm seriously going to lose it. I tell them all that if she doesn't stop with that insanely piercing, loud, never-ending whine/cry, I'm going to have to leave. Because I am seriously going to have to leave. I'm mad about work, I'm mad about the pasta sauce, and I can tell that I am on the verge of yelling. Nora sort of calms down and I avoid yelling.

The kids are sick, Jake is sick, I am sick. We are all sick.