Bikeless Blues

Today was one of  those drop-dead gorgeous days when I wanted to be on my bike.  Tomorrow I go to the gynecologist again.  Please, Dr. Ronica, say yes.  Tell me it's OK to get back on the bike.  


And what was I doing today?  Giving an exam, grading more papers...You get the idea.  Just like yesterday, except that today had sunshine and warm weather that I couldn't enjoy.


Yesterday it was chilly and rainy until the evening.  Then, a warm breeze swept through the darkened sky and seemed to break up the clouds.  I purposely got off the subway a stop earlier than I usually do just so I could walk a bit more.  


Tonight I was talking to another prof who's been teaching about as long as I've been.  We concurred that this indeed has been a stressful semester. "Usually, I feel burnt out during the last week or two of the semester.  But this time, I felt that way about five weeks before it ended." The difference between me and him, I said, is that I think I started to feel spent, used up or whatever you want to call it even earlier than that.  I realize now that we came to drag ourselves through significant parts of this semester for essentially the same reasons:  our workload and class sizes increased, we're getting older and the atmosphere in the college and department is not a happy one.  And I think that the negative energy in there wore on me even more than it did before mainly because I noticed it more.  Actually, I didn't notice it so much as I felt as if I no longer had a filter against it, as I seem not to have some of the other filters I used to have.  Whether that's a consequence of my operation or anything related to it, I don't know.