20151014.0611

Work continues, as ever it must. Yesterday, in addition to grading a stack of papers (and writing a poem about it), I did loads of laundry, vacuumed Sherwood Cottage, drafted two proposals for honors sections of first-year composition (one for first-semester, one for second), and read a novel in preparation for the write-up I mean to do--or at least to do most of--today. All of this was in addition to taking care of Ms. 8 while the Mrs. was at work at the pharmacy, and Ms. 8 has a bit of a head cold or some such thing, which makes her more of a mess than her nearly-twenty-month-old self usually is. So I have been busy, and I will continue to be busy; aside from the aforementioned write-up, I teach today, and the Mrs. works in the afternoon, so I will be taking care of Ms. 8 while trying to negotiate the rest.

Recognizing this, I attempted to wake early, so as to get ahead on the work. The attempt failed; I reset the alarm to its normal time when it went off early. This was despite my having gone to bed reasonably early last night and not having stayed up reading, as I have been known to do. (I do miss getting to read at my leisure. The freelance work goes reasonably easily because I have spent as much time reading for leisure as I have, but I would hate to think that that reading serves no purpose but practice for freelance work.) I do not know what to do about the matter--although I do recall that I have not been treating myself as well as I ought to do. Taking better care of myself seems a place to begin; I should see about doing that. Somehow.

Among that should be my writing practice. It has been a week since I put pen to paper in my physical journal. Doing so was good for me; it eased my mind and prompted me to bring my body into better alignment, which has other benefits. I should probably start doing that again, and not only for the health benefits (physical and mental). Leaving another kind of archive for Ms. 8 to examine in time suggests itself as a good idea--and if not her, then perhaps some student I might come to have in the longed-for future in which I have a tenure-line job and have been able to cultivate long-term relationships with students. I was able to do so to some extent as a graduate student, and the tutee who workshopped a course paper with me for later presentation was moving in that direction; both were good experiences, and I would like to have them again. A record of my deeds and doings, filtered through my reflections on them, seems a thing worth having--but that will not occur if I do not create it, and there are things I write down because I need to exorcise them or remember them past the abilities of my squishy brain that would not read as well in pixels as in pen-strokes.

I would seem to have more to do.