20150305.0756

Snow did fall yesterday, although not for many hours after it was called for, and not in such quantities as choked the streets with frozen water. My wonderful wife and I were able to go to the grocery store with ease yesterday evening, driving in the dark when the weather should have been worst without difficulty--because it was not so bad. Today seems to be colder, but the sun is shining and the streets seem to be clear; the school is open again, but since I am not scheduled to teach today, I end up with another day away from work. Since yesterday was a day away from work, I was able to get a freelance piece pushed through without trouble, so today I have a short one on my docket, after which I will see about pushing out some job applications and trying to catch up on my reading.

I am still behind on my reading.

I am also slightly behind on my grading. My students submitted a major assignment on Monday, and while I told them that I would not be rushing through grading it, the fact that I had an extra day away from work suggests to me that perhaps I ought to have bumped up my plans for reviewing the work my students do. The plan had been to attend to it this weekend, and I do still have that intent. The work ethic with which I was raised and which was further inculcated into me by years of graduate school tells me, though, that I should still be working--even though I was working yesterday and will be working on other things today. Even when I am working, I need to be working more--something with which my academic friends will be familiar, I have no doubt.

And I am still behind on my reading.

I doubt that I will get caught up on the things I need to get caught up on today. The backlog of things on which I am behind is joined by new tasks that need doing, both professional and domestic, and others queue up daily. The situation is common, I know, and no more to be decried for me than for other people--perhaps less, honestly, since it is only my household and my paycheck that depend on my getting more done, and not the lives of others than my wife and Ms. 8. Important as they are to me, I know that they and I are infinitesimally small within the world, and that world is itself infinitesimally small within creation. I am working on finding the freedom in that revelation that others note having found, that nothing matters and so there is no reason to worry or fret.

I am still behind on doing so.