20160125.0601

Work continues, as it is wont to do. I will be in the classroom for four classes today. Three will be conducting peer reviews, students practicing reading and critique on one another's papers while I take quiz grades and make some few comments. The fourth will be a regular lecture and discussion. Things should work out well enough for all involved, and I will have a bit of time to attend to other concerns during office hours. In terms of my regular employment, then, as well as one of my side-jobs--because one of the classes is not like the others--the day should be decent enough, and I look forward to it.

Another of the side-jobs, the one in which I conduct write-ups of popular fiction (and now non-fiction), seems to be on hiatus. This has happened once or twice before; sales are down a bit, and so there seems less demand for the products I produce. I am somewhat worried, however; I need the money that the work brings in, and I have not heard from the client in longer than I would like. An email is in order, most likely, and if it yields no results, well, that would be a shame. I will have to see about securing some other kind of work in the meantime, or else attending to some other writing entirely and trying to sell it. But I am glad I have kept my regular job in the meantime; it is exactly this kind of thing that I anticipated as being a problem for full-time freelancing.

I have to note, however, that the time not spent buried in work has been rewarding. For example, yesterday saw me and the Mrs. take Ms. 8 to a local playground. Our little girl had a hell of a time, climbing all over the playground equipment and happily engaging with a pair of other girls who were also there. (There are not many children on our street, and, as they are older, they tend not to play with Ms. 8.) She even played on the swings--not the baby swing, with a back and leg-holes, but the more common swing, with a backless seat on two chains. It was her first time doing so, to my knowledge or my wife's (I think), and it was no small joy to see her smiling face in the winter afternoon sunlight as she went back and forth in delight.

Even among such joys, however, I am concerned. Work needs doing because Sherwood Cottage and those in it need access to resources, and work provides that access. Problematic as the system may be--and there are problems in the system, to be certain, but discussion thereof is something for another time and another venue--it is the one in which my family is enmeshed. I find myself caught by Laertes's question: "May one be pardon'd and retain the offense?" As with many forked sticks, it is not a comfortable position. But I do not know how to extricate myself from it--or those stuck in it with me, which is all the worse.