Every year. Every single year. I forget how chaotic and unproductive the first 1-2 weeks of the semester are. It’s completely bonkers around higher education in those weeks. Students are back, faculty are all back, there are more people in the building, meetings, other obligations. It’s back to back to back most days and then when you DO get a mini break on the weekends? It’s time to go in and reply to all the emails that you neglected all week… which often number in the hundreds.
Keeping all the balls in the air, remembering to eat and sleep and oh, yeah, work on my own stuff (ha) is exhausting. It doesn’t help when you wake up 1.5 hours before your alarm 3 days in a row and have difficulty going back to sleep. Yeah. That’s been fun.
I just have to remember that it’s temporary. Things will smooth out… eventually. The rhythm of life in the middle of the semester will return. But for now? I feel like a headless chicken in a centrifuge. Seriously. I’m happy when I know what day it is (which, admittedly, has been a challenge this week, since we did not convene classes until Tuesday…). I’m also happy when I don’t completely forget important things.
Marshaling my energy to get through these weeks…and knowing that I will.. helps sustain my persistence and perseverance.
Now, if I could just remember that this happens every. single. semester. Wouldn’t that be nice?