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February 09, 2000
Stress, angst, and ennui
Oi. The semester is in full, frantic swing here, with lots of new students wandering around looking lost, and returning students looking frantic (already -- I guess this school's reputation for stressing students out is well-deserved. When I was an undergrad at Emerson, I was barely awake during the first week of the semester.) And the new students are so helpless! My mom's personal favorite is the girl who came in and asked for help finding a particular book. She didn't know the title, she didn't know the author, and she didn't really know what it was about. She did, however, know that the cover was blue. "Oh, okay, we keep all of our blue books on the third floor, just past the green books."
Yesterday there was a frantic grad student trying to get ahold of a book that was checked out. He had recalled it, but it hadn't been returned yet, and he needed it for his thesis, which is apparently due next week. (My thought was, if your thesis is due next week, and this book is so damned important, why did you wait until now to try to get it? I'm just saying.) First he wanted to know who had the book -- we can't tell him that. Then he wanted us to go get the book from the person -- sure, we'll go bust into the guy's apartment and take the book back. That's what library people do, you know. Finally, he said "Well, can't you just go out and look for the person who has the book and tell them I need it?" Sure! I'll just go roam the greater Boston area, combing the streets for this guy, just so you can get your book. Ninny. It is an endless sourse of amusement, though -- at the moment I'm sitting here watching people come up to the entrance (clearly marked "Pull" and push on it for several seconds, wondering why it won't open. I'm not kidding.
Work is causing me stress, too -- we're shortstaffed, and while I don't really think that's a problem, my boss does. She doesn't handle worries very well. She gets high-strung and anxious, and ends up nagging us constantly. She's irritable, so any suggestion we make to try to make things easier is met with a tongue-lashing. And she hovers around the circulation desk, fretting -- she thinks she's helping, but she's really just making it a thousand times harder for us to get anything done.
Really, it's not that big a deal. I think we could easily get by even if we don't hire a new person. It's a little busy at times, but I don't mind. I'd rather be busy than scraping around for busywork to do. But it's hard to be around someone who is so high-strung without having some of her stress rub off on you.
Work is taking my mind off my terrible mood, though. It took me 45 minutes to get dressed today, because I couldn't find any clothes that weren't too tight. It's very warm out, so I can't wear a huge floppy sweater. It's my own fault, really -- around the end of November I lost the motivation to work out. The inclination to diet went soon after. I had lost about 16 pounds before that happened, and I have since gained them all back, plus a few more. So I've started working out again, but I can't help being thoroughly depressed about the whole thing. And I'm kicking myself for the two months of not working out, because I know I'd feel a lot better if I had stuck with it.
I try not to let my weight color my self-image too much, but it's hard. I end up feeling completely disgusting and depressed, no matter how much I tell myself that it really isn't important. Lately, even reminding myself that my very skinny husband likes me the way I am doesn't help. So, back to the diet, and back to working out. I really like using the treadmill -- it's in my house, so I don't have to deal with going to the gym, and I can read while I do it. And it does wonders for my insomnia. So why can't I stick with it?
Posted by Mary Ellen at February 9, 2000 06:36 PM