Slow Start
I did not actually forget about Holidailies... until I did. I thought about it this morning, and was planning to write my entry first thing. It was the first relatively relaxed morning I'd had in a while, and I thought that sipping coffee and typing up a journal entry would be a great way to spend at least part of it. I had a whole entry planned in my head.
But then my sister called, and even though she "could only talk a minute" we ended up having an hour-long conversation, about everything from Christmas plans to my nephew's new not-a-girlfriend. By the time we hung up, I needed to get to school for the last day of classes, plus a bunch of errands.
I had good public transport karma, and didn't have to wait in line to return
my library books, so I had a little time to kill on campus before my meeting.
So I went to a computer lab in the library, thinking I could squeeze in a
quick entry. I managed to locate a free computer among the sea of undergrads
frantically writing last-minute papers, shrugged off my coat, logged on...
and then found myself staring at the screen in confusion.
Er, right. I forgot. I can't actually do this from any old place: I need my
software, my style sheets, my graphics. I may not be tied to a physical place,
but I'm tied to this laptop when it comes to writing in this journal.
Well, I figured, I'll just do it when I get home tonight. So I went to my meeting, had a long gossipy lunch with a couple of classmates, skimmed through the reading for my Pedagogy class, went to class. Class was from 5 to 8, although we ran a little long since we got to chatting. Then, of course, a few of us went out for a celebratory beer: no more classes this semester! Which does not mean said semester is actually over, of course. There are still assignments to finish, paperwork to deal with, and of course the grim stack of papers to grade. But it felt like a celebratory moment nonetheless.
As we walked to the campus pizza bar in the frigid winds, I wondered whether I should write a different entry than the one I had in mind, maybe something about the oddities of campus life. We had to scrounge up chairs for a shaky table under a speaker blaring too-loud music, sipped our beers (and one ginger ale), talked about the weirdness of grad school and our plans for next semester and beyond--all against a background noise of raucus undergrads blowing off steam between the end of classes and the start of finals.
The best thing about Wednesdays is that I get a ride home from a classmate who lives across the river. On the way home, we talked about our work and our hopes and our worries and what we have left to do. We made vague plans to get together over the holidays. I picked up mail that consisted only of bills and glossy catalogues that go straight in the trash, came upstairs to a very enthusiastic greeting by my cat, and settled in to check mail and watch Project Runway.
In some ways, this was a pretty typical day for me, although it was more social than normal, and a lot less stressful than any days I've had in the last month or so. It was nice to start to unwind, to talk to people without fretting about the minutes passing. In all that unwinding, alas, I completely forgot about Holidailies, until now. Oops.
So I'm getting off to a slow start. I promise there will be better entries to come, although probably not all of them will be better. (Some might even be worse!) But they'll be there. This time I'm determined not to fizzle out early. Third time's the charm...