Juggling Too Many Jobs (Update on Commissioning SciComm Stories) · 11:16pm Nov 18th, 2019
Re-watching S9E11 Student Counsel the other day made me really relate to Starlight Glimmer. I am also currently in the non-stop business of a college teaching post, with students demanding my attention, and I want to help them. This term has turned out even crazier than usual as a last-minute change meant the sub-atomic physics course I usually teach next term is happening now. In addition to my other teaching duties of vectors, complex numbers, calculus, nuclear physics lab. Somehow I also got roped into teaching study skills...
This is only one of my jobs. I also have to take care of all my Public Engagement with Research duties – which is the fun stuff I really want to do. Then there is my role as a trade union casework coordinator. I took that on last year as I realised it was such a mess in my local branch that I reasoned I could make a big improvement without too much work. And it let me pretend I am Twilight Sparkle, fixing all the friendship problems in the university. Except I don't have any magic super powers, and I now get email after email about urgent new cases from people at risk of losing their job, or worse. However hard I try to set boundaries on how much time I give this, things always happen that demand my attention. People ask for help and I can see they really need it and it seems heartless to turn them away.
And I suppose I should sometimes build some particle detectors or something.
I envy Starlight's ability to just teleport to wherever she needs to be (I have to make do with a bicycle). Her glowing bracelet was nice analogy with today’s lifestyle problem where we always feel the need to have our phones turned on ready to respond to any issue. It's super efficient – until it all becomes too much.
I do need to cut back on everything I’m doing…
All this rambling is to explain why I haven’t been so active on Fimfiction, and why I haven’t been promoting my Particle Physics Pony Fic commissions project, which I really did want to do a better job of. I promise I will post some more stuff soon.
To summarise to status: I am looking for story pitches. I received a brief flurry at the start, but it has since been quiet, as I haven’t been pushing it. I need to do a bit more. I would like to get some more before picking the best.
It seems sensible to give a deadline – at least for a first round. So I propose to pick some stories after 15 December. This is later than I originally had in mind, but realistically I know I won’t find time to really engage with it before then.
More soon. Just hope none of my students decide to do a research project on cockatrices.
I have math homework… So yeah I’m pretty busy too.
Do you have a friend with undiagnosed narcissism who you can give your old duties to? That's how Starlight fixed it.
I wonder if you can combine one of those fly zappers with a cloud chamber to make a direction rate and energy sensitive detector? Be a bit daft if you can actually get useable results out of things from Poundland.
Hope the ireality engine running the universe eats the excess paperwork and delivers it to more deserving recipiants.
Entirely fair. Best of luck juggling everything.
Good luck with the workload!