Monday, February 23, 2015

20150223.0750

As I noted, last week saw my daughter, the incomparable Ms. 8, reach her first birthday. I also noted that she turned up with pneumonia and that several members of her extended family came up to see her. The celebration went reasonably well after we started treating her for the illness, and she seems to be on the mend--although she was not quite recovered yesterday, given what happened at both ends of her digestive tract. Ms. 8's mother and I both hope that she is more fully recovered and that we will not need to repeat a number of yesterday's events. They were neither helpful nor pleasant.

Today, I have another online interview, for which I am wearing a suit and tie. Picking which one I needed to wear reminded me of my increasing flabbiness, and not only in my well-fed belly; the shirt I had initially thought to wear does not admit of having the collar buttoned--at least it does not admit of it and allow blood to flow to my brain as it ought. But I know that I have been neglecting my health of late; I have not exercised as I ought to have done, and I accept the consequences thereof even as I know I need to work to address them. It is yet one more thing that I need to do, one more thing I need to somehow fit into my days.

There are many such things, of course. I yet have papers to write and job applications to complete (and I was reminded over the weekend of the consequences of putting off doing so), and I have the work of teaching to do (although I confess to having hoped for a snow day today; alas that it was not to be!). Grading will take up some time today or tomorrow, as my classes have an assignment due; it is only a memo, so easily graded and quickly, but still it must be done. I will need to do lesson prep for the assignments I have yet to issue them, as there are several coming up that will need attention before being distributed to the students. (I probably ought also to see about getting student examples from previous semesters up on the website where current students can review them.) And, since I have begun to be informed about my teaching schedule for the fall term (provided I am still in place and not elsewhere with a tenure-line job), I am nagged by the idea of starting to set up my assignment sequence for it--which means I need to see about getting a desk copy of one book or another. So I look to be busy this week no less than last.

Somehow, of course, I will get things done. I have no real other choice, actually; they need to be done, and I need to do them. Whether or not all of the things that need doing are worth doing, whether or not I benefit from doing them, is not clear to me. I have to believe that they are and that I do, but I am not at all sure...

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