Grayson Wright
October 30, 2019 3:39 PM
More involvement, more problems (Staff Lounge). by Grayson Wright
The notebook was open, the idea was clear, and the pen was loaded with ink. The only problem was that Gray's mind kept wandering away from them all. Irritatingly, it didn't even wander to any particular place. Instead, he just kept finding himself staring at a point on the staff room rug, thinking nothing at all, as far as he could tell.Catching himself again, he shook his head a little, looked at his pen, and made a face upon noticing that the ink was dry. Again. He dipped it into the pot of alcohol on his lapdesk to clean it, dried it with a small cloth, and then...put the pen down, giving up instead of dipping the pen back into his inkwell. He wanted to work, but the trouble was, his job was currently frankly exhausting him.
Lesson planning had, for a while, been getting easier - if only because he could draw from older lessons when he felt no particular inspiration. Adding the job of Head of House to it had increased his workload, but Aladrens were an independent lot; most of his charges had little interest in asking for support, or in doing things that required him to call them out for things. At the moment, it was the season for writing recommendation letters, but he didn't have many of those to work on. However, lesson planning and Head of House duties were still things that took up time, and now he had added editing his novel to that, and then added working with Evelyn to that....
That last one, admittedly, did take a lot of creative energy. He spent hours doing research for new things to try, then writing lessons around what he found, figuring out how to adjust around the unpredictabilities of the sessions, and also finding books for Evelyn to read to hopefully provide further aid when he wasn't actively working with her. It was rewarding work, but still work, and this, along with everything else, was making his usual side-projects impossible. Unfortunately, writing side pieces - editing was Work, as was writing for work when his job had included writing in a professional context - had always been the thing he did to relax, so not writing meant being more stressed, which made him tireder, which...ended with him then even further refraining from writing. Which rapidly turned into an unpleasant cycle and staring blankly at the staff room carpet.
With a slight sigh, he put his lapdesk aside, locked it, and wandered over to the staff kitchenette. He looked over the options, then paused on the teabags.
He knew a lot of people drank tea and felt less tired as a result, but without the jitters of coffee. That sounded like a pretty good deal to him. However, the tea drinkers he knew best were Anne and, to a lesser extent, her protege Alicky, and they both made the substance look like it took rather a lot of time, energy, and expertise to make properly. However, his coworkers rarely seemed to need that much effort to produce drinks in the kitchenette, and workplaces rarely provided free drink-making stuff that would take an undue amount of care to finish. He picked up a teabag, hesitated, and was glad to see someone else approaching.
"Afternoon," he said. "Do you know if there's anything special you have to do to make this?" He held up the teabag in its wrapper to illustrate what he meant.
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Grayson Wright
More involvement, more problems (Staff Lounge).
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