Is it possible to forget a day before it is over? I don’t mean that I want to, but that today just didn’t stand out in any prominent way. You wake up, eat food, do things, do some other things, and then the day moves on and you do, too.
One of the favorite parts of my day was sending an email to students to wrap up the week. I was trying to point out the value of thinking of the last two assignments together. And I was illustrating that with some real world context beyond the theoretical. The students will, I’m sure, roll their eyes. But then I ended the email with a short list of things going on campus. And that’s become my favorite part of the week: hey gang, the planetarium is having an open house, there’s laser tag, a beach clean up project, an important Buddhist celebration and so on.
There’s a lot going on, because that’s part of campus life. It’s not for me — the group running it didn’t invite me to laser tag, after all — but there’s always a group of students that might not know about something going on around them. Or, more critically, there might be a student or two stressed by a class or other things. It’s nice for them to know there’s more out there than just this assignment or that grade. So it’s one of the favorite part of my work week, finding those things, and sharing them. And if a few of the students come to think that I’m a prof that knows there’s more to college than classes, all the better.
I need to figure out a system for the plants on days like this. I moved them indoors last week, because the weather is variable enough. I have some grow lights in the basement and water them one day and spray them the next, but which day is which? And why am I bad with houseplants? Why am I trying? They aren’t even ours.
I sprayed them tonight.
Anyway, it was cool today. It will be warmer tomorrow. Work and play will be mixed and I’ll have to water the plants tomorrow night.
I went out for another late afternoon bike ride. I rode into town, setting two Strava PRs on the way. Then I doubled back and my legs disappeared. It was the headwind, I tell ya. And it hit me in the face as I rode in three different directions.
Because it is cool, my shadow was wearing a wind breaker.
It wasn’t necessary at first, so the first 10 or 15 miles it was just holding heat in, but then the sun got low, and I cooled off fairly quickly. By then, at least, the wind was at my back.
And somewhere right in here, I dropped some fuel. I’ll go out and try to find it tomorrow.
It’ll be a bit warmer, and even more remarkable than today.
