18 March 2010

Another Day After


Today the weather was even nicer than it was yesterday. But I didn't ride my bike to work. I had a very early class. That wouldn't have been a problem: In fact, it would have been nice to ride even earlier in the morning than I rode yesterday. However, I woke up too late for that. I didn't set my alarm clock because I fell asleep while reading a student's paper. The funny thing is that I didn't feel tired immediately after getting home. I guess it caught up with me. Plus, dilating and taking my requisite hot bath afterward was probably not the best preparation for reading papers, or doing any other kind of work!

Well...at least I've ridden to work once this week. Maybe next week I'll make cycle to work a couple of times. The following week will be Spring Break. Hopefully, I'll get to ride some more then.

Maybe, once I lose some weight, I should move to Provence or Tuscany--or, perhaps, to some European city. Once I get my Miss Mercian, I'll be the most stylish cyclist anyone will ever see!

Actually, Provence and Tuscany are appealing after the kind of weather we've had this winter. I don't mind the cold or snow so much; some city blocks are rather charming in a Currier and Ives Christmas card sort of way when they're blanketed in white. But other parts of this city, like the campus and its surroundings, are rather grim in the winter.

And the college itself, save for the students, feels grimmer by the day. I'm starting to wonder whether--actually, doubt that--it will lift with the weather. The administration is trying to make the college a better place, at least academically, and I think that, at least to some degree, they're succeeding. But they're also running the place as if everyone is guilty until proven innocent. They accuse us of things we haven't done and, in turn, supervisors are treating their charges in the same way.

Plus, I feel more and more that I'm in junior high school without the friends--few though they were--I had during my first pubescence. Even the "cool" kids, whom people like me hated because we weren't among them, are absent. Instead, what we have, at least in some of the people there, are the kinds of people who bully because they got bullied when they were at that age. Sometimes I wonder whether education (or, at least, education administration) generally attracts those sorts of people.

Maybe I'll feel better about the place after Spring Break. At least, I still hope for that.