Busy-ness

I've been busy. Happy-busy, and sad-busy.

Sad-busy because ET is sick. We have moved into a new stage of our relationship, one of her completely depending on me. She stopped eating and drinking, and I had to endure two vet visits in which the vet told me, in various unnecessary words, that ET was going to die. The funny thing is, I have been expecting her to die eleven years ago. Now she is sixteen years old. She has outlived the vet's expectation, but she has long outlived mine. So it's not necessary to talk about death.

Instead, I feed her. I syringe-feed her Critical Care canned food, and I syringe-feed her water. She is still a bag of bones--I can no longer rest my head on her hill of a belly for a pillow. But she is strong enough to go to her litter tray. And she cleans herself again. Keeping up with one's appearance is always a sign that there is the will to stay alive. She is ever the noisy cat, moaning and sighing deep dramatic sighs when I haul her over for feeds. But she lifts her lip and starts lapping her tongue when the syringe approaches, and stays put for about five feeds. Then she's all "I'm done," and wriggles her bum out of there.

I feed her in six-hour intervals, and try to entice her back to self-feeding in the mornings. No matter what time I reach home at night, I heat up a mash for her before I sleep. My room and fingers smell of liver afterwards for a while. But nothing comforts me like knowing there is warm food in her belly, and that her organs won't fail.

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Happy-busy, because I am really busy with work.

I enjoy teaching more than I thought I would. Teaching at night is a stamina challenge. I have to ration out the energy I use during the day, so that I can do the three-hour block at night. But however tired I am when I walk into class, the interactions with the students always make it enjoyable.

University students are probably the easiest to handle. They've made it this far, which means they want to be here. And they work hard to stay here. They're Engineering double majors who tell me they were conned into taking this course because the slogan was 'Engineers Can Draw'. They thought it would be all art; turns out it's 60% Engineering. What that means for me is they look forward to my class, their only Art core all semester.

They kid with me like a friend, but shush each other up because "Teacher is talking." They write to me asking for feedback on their work, and tell me that they really enjoyed their museum excursion.

So now I'm in a dilemma, wanting to teach again next semester, but also wanting to do my masters for myself, to be a better artist. It's a good dilemma to have, but so difficult to choose one or the other.

I guess that only means that I'm really enjoying my job.