I gave a last lecture in a class night. The students were thrilled. I have two more final lectures to prepare for the term. After that it’s finals. Between now and then: the continual effort to get everything sorted and graded. And then finals.
Well, then two deep breaths, and starting work on next term.
And then finals.
Yesterday I was thinking about the natural rhythms of a college campus. In my mind they’ve always been divided into weeks. And for the first few weeks you’re trying to find the term’s beat. Then you grab it. Then midterms, and you grab onto the rhythm once more. Something unexpected might happen, so you try to find it again, and maybe you do. Then finals, and it’s over. And, suddenly, there’s the next term’s cadence to think about. I was thinking about how you never sit in the pocket long, even if nothing unexpected comes up the best you can do is maximize yourself in that rhythm for two months and change. This is where the discipline comes in. The determined can thrive in that pocket. If you can’t, you always feel behind.
I haven’t felt behind — I haven’t in a long time, I guess, so maybe I’m doing well with the meta-rhythm — but I have had to find the new beat.
I started today’s bike ride with no real plan, but I did one of the regular two routes, and added on an extra little bit, featuring that newly discovered road. You know the one. Two lanes, no houses, only the woods on either side. It eventually leads to a busy four-lane road which has a nice clean, broad shoulder. I got a honk and a semi-close pass on that road, right next to the “Report Aggressive Drivers Call 9-1-1” sign.
The universe does enjoy a good laugh.
My fastest tenth mile split was all the way back around at the end of the route, near our neighborhood, where I really poured on the coals and worked up a respectable 24.34 miles per hour. I set no Strava PRs on this ride, generated no power. But I did stay warm. It was 44 degrees when I set out, and 42 or so when I got back. I wear several layers and, today, I added some wrap around ear muffs. Game changer.
It’s hard to get to my phone under all of those layers, plus there are the gloves, and it was gray today, so it didn’t seem worth the struggle. Instead, I just … enjoyed myself?
I enjoyed myself immensely.
Instead of ride photos or ride videos, allow me to share a new shirt I recently made.
Rather proud of that.
In between grading things — and I have been grading a lot of things so far this week — I have also started a new solution for my cufflinks.
Perhaps I should back up. I have a lot of cufflinks. A few years ago I found the style that I favored, and I got a few reasonable deals on french cuff shirts and so I was set. Then the pandemic came along. One thing I did to while away some time was to start making my own cufflinks. Find some good materials, establish a rhythm, and you can make a few pretty quickly. They’re lightweight, comfortable, flexible and functional. I gave quite a few to our old neighbor who liked, too. But I still have a lot.
In the old house, I had a drawer in the bathroom vanity where they were stored. It was functional, but I ran out of soon ran out of space for them.
I have a lot of cufflinks.
I was going to make a special drawer, but then we got great new jobs, put the house on the market, moved and so on. The vanity in our bathroom here, however, does not lend itself to that same drawer idea. So my cufflinks, all of ’em, have been living in Ziploc bags inside of an old grocery bag. But that’s not conducive to making a daily selection.
This is my first experiment.
I have a lot of cufflinks. But look! Room for more!
