End-of-Term Blues

[stoutfellow]

Feeling a bit down today. Yesterday was one of those days that makes early retirement awfully tempting. The college has asked each department to come up - purely hypothetically ;-) - with plans by which they could cut 3, 6, or 9% from their budgets, in anticipation of expected state budget cuts. Also, the state is monkeying around with pension payouts, cutting back from what was promised when we were hired. (Funny: when a struggling company gives a CEO a golden parachute, it's all about "the sanctity of contracts", whereas when state employees ask for the retirement plans they've been paying into and counting on for decades, suddenly it's "greedy suckers at the public tit". Pfeh.)

Fortunately, the rest of the week was the kind that encourages me to stay on. I think I gave pretty good lectures in both History of Math classes this week, and we wrapped up Gauss-Bonnet in the differential geometry class. (Not sure what I'm going to do in that class *next* week, which is the last week of the semester, but I'll think of something. A couple of students have made reasonable suggestions.)

Gah. I may not want to quit, but I could sure use a break - and not one spent flat on my back in a hospital, thankyouverymuch.

Comments

[mmegaera]

Much sympathy. Big bureaucracies (and governments -- I was a gov't employee for a few years) can be a PITN. Here's hoping they don't rip you off on your pension.