20feb2020
i was up early. almost as early as usual. there are some days i can sleep in now but not this morning. i let the dog out, read some more of my current book, did some dishes, made tea and coffee, and ate a little leftover pasta for breakfast. i wasn’t looking forward to the day but i wasn’t dreading it either. just felt like another slog.
i took my son to school then went to work. i was working out of my old office for the second day in a row due to instruction sessions in the old building. the newish employee who had taken over my old office was transplanted to my new digs for these days. switcheroo. however, it was not exactly nostalgic because it was no longer my office. i used a laptop instead of their machine (still the same one i had used for several years) and sat apart from their stuff since it was, you know, theirs and not mine. the sounds and smells and spaces were all very familiar but it did not put me in a nostalgic state of mind. rather, it was a recognition of the quality of moving on to new places and responsibilities.
the day ahead meant several hours of doing the same presentation over and over. i had already gotten the longer day with more repetitions done the day before but still had another day after to go through, albeit with less iterations. still, it was a slog.
i did look forward to having a gap today between lectures which i did not have the day before. it meant being able to recuperate more fully and being able to spend lunchtime with my wife, something i had not been able to do the previous day. i missed that. she was late getting away from her work due to having to handle another behavior problem but she made it fairly quickly. we talked about the travails of our separate mornings, ate our lunches, and reluctantly dissolved back to work. it’s almost always a fight for me to find parking when i return from lunch but i did and found out the temperature had dropped – i was very cold on my bike. i had left my inner fleece jacket in my office thinking i would not need it.
i spent a bit of time in my (new) office discussing things with my employee and then returned to the other building to continue my lectures for the afternoon.
i also needed that time to vet a friend’s capstone “paper” (more of an “essay”) for their degree program. it was nice to know they trusted me for an opinion and feedback. just like the old days in the history department. it was nice to flex the rust off my old paper critiquing muscles.
my last lecture finished at 5, a bit later than my usual leave-taking. i went home and hurriedly got ready for bi-weekly martial arts class with my son. i was tired and he didn’t want to go but i know from long experience that routine action when feeling like this will perk you up. so, we went.
we get there a bit early to help with the lower belts and to do some free training in-between classes. our class that night began with an impromptu game called “knee tag.” it was a hoot. i’d never heard of it before: you can tag anyone but can’t get tagged or move if you have both hands on your knees. people were finding interesting ways to move…
anyway, we learned some stuff, taught some stuff, got really tired in a good way, and came home. i did feel refreshed. we ate Indian food from pouches and rice that my wife had cooked. we all talked for a while before watching a comedy special on HBO that was only meh. i was falling asleep but when i went to shut off the tv i saw that there was only 3 minutes left in the program so i powered through. then i kicked out the cats so they would not disturb my sleep, said goodnight to my video-watching, video-gaming, nightowl son, and my wife and i went to bed. we stayed up and talked a bit longer mainly because we were planning a small trip out of town for just us over the weekend. i finally drifted off with the dog twisted up snugly in his fleecey blanket in the lounge chair. the day had not been a total slog.