So, I tried the same activity that was so successful yesterday with my M-W class today with my T-Th class. I won't say it bombed, but it definitely did not generate the energy it did yesterday. That's always how it goes, and I was expecting it. Some of these people seem on track with the idea of analyzing ads in a wider framework, but many of them are lost, lost, lost. I talked to one young man today who hadn't done very much of the preparatory writing up until this point, and he was really lost. Well, if he's not gonna read the book and he's not gonna do the homework, I can't help him much.

I'm learning to jettison very quickly the ones I can't help, without feeling too badly about it. I'm reminded of something I read years ago, about the nature of help. What I remember is the statement that help is incremental; if I say something pivotal and life-changing to someone, I have to remember that there were many people who said more or less the same thing, apparently to deaf ears. I will have my share of deaf ears in my classes. That doesn't mean I'll stop talking, but it does mean I will stop feeling that I've failed if they don't hear.

At any rate, it was still a good day overall. I like this rhythm of dropping Em off at school, then going to work, and working until after my class at 4:00. Oddly enough, it feels pretty much the same as working at the CoP: I have a more-or-less 9-5 workday, and I don't have to take anything home with me (yet). Evenings are similarly short and compacted; there is never enough time for what I want to do. Weekends feel relaxed but full and always too short. I can be very sanguine about all of this, though, because I know that come mid-May, I'm free. I intend to work as hard as I need to between now and then, and when I close the door for the summer, it will be closed indeed. I'm already making plans.

Tomorrow I have a new faculty orientation from 12-3, and a colleague is giving a poetry reading at MSU in the evening. So I'll get to campus around 9:15, prepare for next week until noon, then after the orientation, maybe I'll go to the MSU outdoor pool if it's still open, or perhaps I'll take my bike and go for a ride . . . Getting out at 3 is much better than getting out at 5, even if it means some work over the weekend. The jury's still out on that one; perhaps it won't, really. And I like the idea that if my days have a 9-5 shape, it's because that's how I'm shaping them, not because that's the shape I have to assume.

I'm just ridiculously content at the moment. The other day I told Em that I almost feel uncomfortable with the physical sensations of happiness . . . like I have to dull them somehow. Here's hoping that I just get used to my new "set point" for contentment!