{"id":573896086,"date":"2023-09-01T21:18:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T01:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573896086"},"modified":"2023-09-02T04:03:17","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T08:03:17","slug":"happy-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2023\/09\/01\/happy-september\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy September"},"content":{"rendered":"

As is so often the case with big tasks, I find that if I can break them up I can finally make real and good progress. It takes a few days of wheel spinning to remember that each time. You could say it is a shortcoming. An oversight. A stubbornness. I think of it as part of the process.<\/p>\n

So it was that I laid out a plan to have the syllabi and material for two classes all squared away by Monday. The other, I’ll wrap up on Tuesday. And then, finally, I can think about what to do with an actual class. (Step one, haircut.)<\/p>\n

Circumstances beyond anyone’s control gave me a late start with some of the prep. My new colleagues have been incredibly helpful with mitigated a lot of that, but, still, there’s a lot to do. Taking it on in smaller chunks gets it done, though, every time. <\/p>\n

I have three notebooks, two piles of paper, three separate browsers, multiple tabs in each and, now, gobs of Google Drive links. There’s a lot to work through. <\/p>\n

And so I did, until almost 6 p.m. on the Friday of a three-day weekend. Then I went for a swim. <\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Two days after a 2,650 yards night swim, I was at it again.<\/p>\n

It takes about 400 yards for my shoulders to warm up. After they stop complaining and until I stop, I go through stretches where my form is bad and then my form feels extraordinarily good. There are moments where I’m breathing on each stroke, hard and strong, a puffing locomotive. And then there are these wild moments where I swim a few short laps with the most relaxed breathing possible. It never lasts, that calmness, that efficiency, but the way it all changes amuses me, and probably says a lot about my inconsistency as a swimmer.<\/p>\n

At precisely the moment where I reached Wednesday’s 2,650-yard distance, my arms started complaining again, this time from fatigue. That’s a mile-and-a-half, so being tired was understandable, but I kept on swimming for a while longer, until I reached this swim’s little goal. Taking on the bigger thing in smaller chunks: a good approach for September.<\/p>\n

I swam 3,080 yards this evening. <\/p>\n

I do not know what is happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As is so often the case with big tasks, I find that if I can break them up I can finally make real and good progress. It takes a few days of wheel spinning to remember that each time. You could say it is a shortcoming. An oversight. A stubbornness. I think of it as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,52,10,101,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573896086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friday","category-i-do-not-know-what-is-happening","category-photo","category-rowan","category-swimming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573896086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573896086"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573896086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573896089,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573896086\/revisions\/573896089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573896086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573896086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573896086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}