Another Visit with Family

Heading out on Saturday for a week of driving to visit family with my family.  The trip is much less high maintenance now that the kids are older and more self-sufficient.  With each year I become more bothered by logistics:  too many people in the house and consequently less sleeping, less access to bathrooms, etc.;  not much room in the closet, none in the bureau for unpacking stuff, living out of suitcase, etc.

I keep thinking longingly of living in a hotel each time.  Yet when I do my family causes the same issues, just not as fervently.

Looking forward to my next conference and some time to myself.

Waiting at Home for the Service Person

I guess every homeowner has experiences to share about late service-personnel.  Having an hour commute means that staying at home is not casual for me---it changes the destiny of my work-day.

In any event I didn't sleep well last night so I've got a headache and am feeling irritable.

Programming

Periodically, when I give myself permission, I become obsessed about programming.  It didn't start until my first full-time job as a financial modeler.  It was hard not to have productivity projects in mind when I was programming most of the work-day.

It's a mania.  It's hard to focus on other things when I am not at the keyboard.  Corrections occur to me when I am doing other things.

And then abruptly I feel closure, whether or not I am done.  Subconsciously I withdraw the permission.

Writing

Well, it's just me in my office, trying to write some papers and a presentation.

I'm not a gifted writer;  I'm better as a programmer and I'd rather program about a topic than try to explain it in prose.

One of my papers is something that is based on programming and seems to be flowing well.

The other paper is a revision of a presentation that I've given and is taking a bit more thought on how to express things better but the content is in place.

The talk is bogging down a bit.

In a little while my hours will be trimmed by my kids schedules after school ends.  That adds a bit of a rush to my work, which at this point in the summer is silly.

Post-Commencement

I often feel very depressed at and shortly after Commencement.  While we all promise to stay in touch, we don't.  It's essentially goodbye to students we've known for years.  If we do see or hear from them later, they are different people in many ways.

This year I didn't feel so depressed, but not because I am any more stable emotionally.  Rather I felt detached---many students didn't stop by our department's faculty after Commencement, and eventually we left.

Pre-Commencement

Strange timing this year.  My Spring final exams occurred as early as possible, and my grades are done a week before Commencement.  I did have a student meeting this morning but the official course-work is done  earlier this term than any other Spring Term that I can recall.

I have things that I want to start working on, but not surprisingly, it's hard to focus.  I'm tired mentally and physically.  I'm trying to move forward on some stuff, no matter how slowly.

Waiting on the Electrician (or someone like him)

I left work early (and brought grading home with me) while electricians are working on some fault here at our house.  They've got the lights working again but something is still wrong; every time they start to close up their work the lights go back out again.

I feel very claustrophobic when I'm home waiting on house repairs.  It's not so bad during the summer so I guess it's related to work-stress.  Not much of that left before the end of the semester.