This is officially the busiest semester I’ve ever had in my life. ðŸ˜
Teaching overload; insane service; the two afternoons I am not completely swamped with the former two, I’m desperately trying to finish and submit some papers.
I am not twenty or even thirty anymore, and my body no longer tolerates lack of sleep. If I get less than 5 hours, I’m useless the following day; this wasn’t the case when I was young, but I suppose all good things must come to an end.
Face time with students and colleagues is so much more draining now than it used to be. On days when I teach my classes, I need a good 30–60 min after the last class for the adrenaline high to dissipate before I am human enough to head home.
Bottom line, I really have to do all my work at work and I can’t skimp on sleep or downtime like I used to, because there will be hell to pay if I do. I have objectively more work now than I did before because I’m more senior, and while I am better and more efficient at my job, I also can’t work nonstop like I used to, nor do I want to, if I’m being honest.
How is your semester going, blogosphere?Â
xykademiqz 
I am reading your post and nodding my head in agreement especially how our aging bodies react to the demands of our jobs. And the better I get at my job, the more I want to spend time just researching.
I also feel the age, especially when having to teach until 9pm some days (late teaching is a cultural thing here in Mediterranean country. I miss my US schedule). I definitely need a nap on those afternoons. I re-entered academia in Mediterranean country of origin, so I’m having the luxury of 0 service for a couple of years. My teaching is concentrated on this semester: 2 courses, one of them new plus lab teaching overload equivalent to a 3rd course. At the same time I am purchasing equipment for the new lab (ridiculously long admin procedure) and starting to train a PhD student, while starting 2 research projects. And I’ll have to go through the tenure process again (different here, tons of more paperwork) at the end of the semester. So a lot is happening right now. But I love this job, so I am enjoying myself. Hopefully next year there will be no teaching overload with a couple of new hires this year.
Sleeping 8h is as non negotiable 🙂 as ever or I’ll get a nasty cold after a few days. I am dreading when service piles up maybe by the end of next year. I hope to be very intentional with what I say yes to. I guess it’s the advantage of moving to a new place, one can attempt to not repeat past mistakes.
I’m retired, but busier than ever with my new hobby of acting. I have to get up early in the morning for my 50-minute bike commute to my acting class at the closest community college, after which I have rehearsals with a classmate for our scene study. I generally take a nap after I bike home, as I have table reads, workshops, or rehearsals about 4 times a week (2–4 hours each). (I also have a 3-hour ceramics class on Tuesday nights.) When I’m not in a scheduled activity, I’m generally trying to memorize lines, reading plays, doing video recordings of monologues, reading books on acting, or scrolling through r/acting or r/Theatre.
@gasstationwithoutpumps, that sounds amazing! Glad you’re enjoying retirement
@Lucy, that sounds exciting. I think I would love to start over, honestly, maybe have a chance for a do-over. Probably not in the cards for me, but I’m happy you’re enjoying your new job. Keep us posted as you gear up!
@Natasha, yep. Getting older sure is humbling. The upside is that it forces you to re-evaluate your priorities.
This has been my hardest semester to date as well – I really hope it doesn’t get any worse than this. I definitely can’t survive on low sleep and the stress is giving me constant headaches, which make it harder to work (and think). If I focus on any one thing that I’m doing, it’s generally something that I like (or at least don’t mind), but there is *so* much of it that there’s no time to enjoy…just to feel overwhelmed. Seems like this is the lot of the worker right now. Definitely makes me want to retire and take acting classes (or, more likely, mess around with my garden).
You are describing my life.
This is the worst semester and I feel my aching body. And it is everything described: I have more and more important responsibilities (i.e. affecting others as well as myself), I have a never ending to do list and am behind on even important and urgent stuff, I have zero time for research and I found out the hard way that I cannot pull all nighters anymore without needing 2 weeks to recover.
And they want to give me another huge service assignment to which everyone has said no because they have zero sense of responsibility so it will fall on me.
This is the end of my research career I think. Cannot wait to have a retirement like @gasstationwithoutpumps
@pyrope, one colleague, who I always thought was a pinnacle of stress-resistance, ended up retiring early because constant stress was giving him autoimmune symptoms. High cortisol for a long time wreaks havoc on the body. I am definitely slacking off more than I did, and nothing happens. It’s so weird. Like being in the matrix. I also drastically reduced sugar and amped protein some, and I’ve pretty much eliminated headaches even though I’m fifty, so definitely perimenopausal.
@BioBrains, resist additional service! I wrote on Twitter the other day, if they’d offer me to teach more in exchange for no service, I would take it in a fucking heartbeat. The long recovery time after any infraction against bodily homeostasis is real. I kid you not, I can’t eat a cookie on an empty stomach anymore, I think it makes my blood sugar spike and I feel really crappy, so very little sweets and only following a substantive meal. Getting old means the fed-up body finally grabs its owner by the shoulders and shakes some long-overdue sense into them. lolsob