Back into the fray

As each semester looms on the horizon like a winter storm rolling in over Lake Michigan, I grow less and less enthusiastic about getting back into the fray. As I've repeatedly told anyone who would listen (including my dept. chair, who truly is sympathetic), teaching four writing classes a semester means that I don't teach as well as I'd like, and I certainly cannot keep up with the grading. I'm not really a perfectionist, but I do have a tendency to be all or nothing about some issues. Teaching seems to be one of them. I want to be able to teach the way it's most effective, but it's rather like a surgeon having to perform a gall bladder surgery in one operating theatre, an appendectomy in another, and heart transplants in yet two other operating theatres--all within an eight-hour period. The surgeon might be able to accomplish those goals because of all the support personnel available, but it's likely that those surgeries would be hurried and sloppy, potentially dangerous.

Obviously, teaching doesn't have the life-or-death implications that sloppy surgeries have, but teaching changes and affects others' lives. If I am tense, rushed, angry, tired, and stressed, I am not going to be a good teacher.

My Esteemed Spouse will return tomorrow evening from his mother's home in Louisiana. That is, unless he has the same trouble he had getting down there. Delta canceled his first flight, and he had to be rebooked on a later flight. At first he was only on standby, but they got him aboard, and he made it to his mother's house about 5 or 6 hours later than planned. His plane comes in about 10 tomorrow night, so let's hope I'm not going to have to crawl out of bed at 3 a.m. to fetch him. At least we live only a couple of miles from the airport.

We've had quite a bit of snow lately. It seems that it snows almost constantly, and sometimes it's heavy. It's supposed to snow again tonight and tomorrow. Today I wore a bright lime green sweatsuit set, simply to "think Spring" and shine a middle finger at winter. It didn't help. I still feel cold and damp.

My brain feels sluggish, probably because I grabbed a quick nap earlier. It's easier to nap when I'm alone since there's no one else but me who is snoring. Or squeaking the leather sofa. I've also slept better at night since my husband has been at his mother's house. Maybe we really should invest in a TempurPedic mattress. They advertise that sleepers' movements won't affect others in the bed, but who knows? We've slept on these memory foam mattresses before when we've traveled, but we're usually so exhausted when we stop for the night, we could be on a bed of nails and still sleep okay. And of course, even when I'm alone in the double bed at the apartment, I often sleep badly.

I assume my friend Ellie and her husband and son have returned from their trip to Europe. One day, maybe I too will get to travel. I'm thinking of flying down to Louisiana this spring to see my friend and aunt (by marriage), Sylvia. We both miss her husband, who died far too young of pancreatic cancer, and we also have a lot of things in common. We talk on the phone occasionally, and it's as if we have been best friends forever, yet we've only met face to face just a time or two. While I'm there (she lives in Hammond), I may rent a car and drive up to Alexandria to see my cousin Mary and her daughters. But all of this is tentative.