Back to Basics

I suspect most people’s minds have certain themes that run through their heads. There are certain topics their brains like to meditate on, and regardless of how broad their thoughts go, there are a few ruts. One of my mind’s ruts is most generally and easily described as city mouse/country mouse, though it hardly does the topic credit, as it ranges over many areas (technology, politics, worldview, etc.). If you are a consistent reader, you will recognize this theme in many of its faces.

Today’s installment of meditations on this theme deals with the fundamental necessities of life—air, water and food.

In Between

We often talk of the valleys of life and mountain top experiences. But these tend to be relatively short periods of time. What’s in between?

Is it merely transitioning from a peak to a valley or vice versa? Is it a vast rolling plain without much scenery? Most likely it is a complex set of contours—smaller rises, runs, dips, straightaways, rapids, doldrums. Days where you work hard but have little to show for it. Days where you work hardly at all and still have little to show for it. And of course days of great promise where the interest of all of the ‘unproductive’ days shows up as a big dividend.

Prayerwalking

Tonight, I finally started something I’ve been meaning to for a couple of years now. I tend to work late, so my building on campus is pretty quiet when I leave, usually just the custodial staff and a few grad students working on their chemical reactions. Tonight, I began prayerwalking my building. I started on the top (5^th) floor and walked the entire hallway and dropped to the 4^th floor below, praying all along.

What did I pray about?

Planting a Semester

With the first summer term starting Thursday, I’m busy doing my semester prep, which consists of about 25 things, some minor and some major, that need to be done every semester. Much of it must wait until very shortly before and even after classes start. Some are as simple as reserving rooms for various meetings during the semester and some are as complex as reconfiguring web pages that have a difficult user interface, but that aren’t available until shortly before the term starts. Much of it is busy drudgery that takes enough brain power that it isn’t easily automated or delegated.

I started thinking about how the beginnings and endings of terms are always my busiest and most stressful times, and there simply isn’t much that can be done about them. It is very cyclical, so I started thinking about other life cycles and realized that the academic term for a faculty member can best be compared to the growing season for a farmer.