Back to New Haven

My wife's 25th reunion at Yale was this past weekend, and we took the kids.

I still have such mixed feelings about Yale, 24 years after I graduated from graduate school there.  I did spend nine years there, and a lot of who I am now developed there.

I had wonderful opportunities there, learned a lot, made some really good friends.  I was also face-to-face with a lot of privileged people, had to deal with an awful lot of hubris.

The resentments of being a scholarship student among trust-fund students still burn in me, and I'm not proud of that.  If anything, it's pushed me to work harder at my job, to exemplify that it's what you do and not who you are born as that matters most.  Such a chip on my shoulder.

Graduation 2011

It's that time again.  I feel pretty distanced from our graduating class.  Back when I taught Analysis regularly I worked with most of them pretty closely, now, not so much.

I anticipate the long ceremony in the sun in the heavy robes on the tiny folding chairs.  I start getting into a mind-set of just wanting it to be over.

Then afterward we meet and greet the students and their families, and I am lousy at that---my social skills have atrophied, and they were never great to begin with.

Then comes the depression, watching everyone leave, the campus growing still.

I almost wish for rain, but I know that that would mess up graduation for the family members that would not be able to be at the ceremony in person inside.

My Family's Back

My wife and kids were up North this past weekend to attend my niece's First Communion.  I am in the middle of final exams and so we knew from early on that I would be staying home.

The peace and quiet was nice.  I have noticed, though, how much I rely upon others to define my roles in life.  Without them around, even though I used my to-do lists to guide me I still felt rudder-less.

This happens during summer break at work as well.  I follow my to-do list, my own little deity, but don't really feel alive until the school year begins anew.

I do wish that my personality were more self-sufficient.

Winding down

I need to start winding down.  I've been so intense this past academic year, feeling the need to keep getting stuff done to keep from being overwhelmed.

As of yesterday my responsibilities should start to wind down.  I need to write final exams, give them and grade them, but that's just time, not a lot of effort.  I still have one more meeting of our curriculum committee to chair and a department retreat to plan and lead.  I still have to resolve our Fall course schedule and staffing.  But there should be more and more open slots in my schedule.  I should have more time and be able to do things more reflexively.

Which is hard.  Emergencies are easy;  it's the day-to-day stuff where there's higher expectations.  I can always blame my twenty balls in the air for mistakes when I'm swamped.  Work without excuses, that's scary.