20141002.0659

I am displeased with the last couple of days of teaching I have done. Normally, I am an energetic lecturer, peppering my talks with jokes at various levels of obviousness and puns of various groan-inducing thrusts. The last couple of days of lecture have been fairly dead, though, and I am not entirely sure why. I know the material backwards and forwards, up, down, and sideways; I am a Wonkavator with it. But getting that knowledge from the factory floor to the packaging--colorful with the occasional golden ticket inside--has not gone so smoothly as it usually does, and I find myself beset by Verucas galore.

(I can follow a metaphor. And I can, perhaps, stop before I go too far. It would not behoove me to talk about geese or squirrels at the moment, I think.)

There is a temptation to put the problem down to fatigue. I have been tired, recently, again, lassitude overtaking me in every spare moment. My mind has been more sluggish, my limbs...It has been long since I have exercised any of the meager knowledge of martial arts I have, and I can tell, truly. I am still doing enough to discharge my collegiate duties, certainly, but not much--if any--more than that, and that is a problem, for I still have much more to do. There are papers to write and to try to get published if I am to find a better and more stable life for myself and those who depend upon me, as I desire to do. And I have job letters to draft and send out, as well as freelance work waiting for my attention (and it will not wait for long).

Simple tiredness, though, does not seem to be the whole of it. I have been tired before and not suffered so much from it; one or two nights of good sleep have fixed the problem. Perhaps I am not sleeping well, although I do not recall waking repeatedly for Ms. 8 or for other reasons. (When I was sick a while back, I woke repeatedly in the night and had trouble returning to sleep, which is rare for me. But that has not been the case since, so far as I know.) It is a thing to consider, although I am not sure I am in a position to do anything about it; I do not know if my insurance covers any kind of sleep therapy, and I am not certain I can afford the co-pay if it does. The professorial salary is not so great as might be expected.

I will trudge on, of course, as there is no real alternative to my doing so. But I have to consider how many more steps I can take before I do wear out. I do not think my feet are bleeding, but I am quite sure they are blistered, and I may have shin splints, to boot.