Fastening Seat Belts; Take Off Happens Soon

For quite some time now, I’ve been designing (and designing and designing and…) a new course, a task that has taken me multiples of time longer than seems reasonable. In fairness to me, there are more moving parts in this course than any other I’ve ever designed: it interlocks with another, team-taught, course that is also under revision and for which I’ve become responsible for a completely new/revised chunk, which also had be be designed to make this all go, and the “stakeholders” with an interest and say in the content/design are a cast of what feels like thousands. There are reasons it’s taken so long, but still, it seems to me that I’ve been seriously slow in getting this done which has been worrisome. It still is.

Whatever, today’s the first day of the course, and oh yes, also the first day of the other semester-long class I’m teaching this semester. Yes, you read that right: I’m teaching two courses on Mondays all semester, both on the same day, and oh? did I mention? They meet for 2 and 3 hours respectively, as each only meets once a week. It seemed like a good idea at the time to clump up my teaching, is all I can say. (Who could possibly have anticipated then what continuing recovery challenges there would be this far out from surgery? I assure you, not I.) Mid-semester, I add three hours of teaching on Tuesdays for 7 weeks. Weekends and the beginnings of weeks are going to be really fun, assuming that I have the energy to meet these commitments I’ve made. I’m hopeful and a little anxious about it.

So, take off is today. As a total side note, have I ever mentioned how much I love vinegar? We have a dog who appears to have food allergies, so we’re feeding her really expensive hypo-allergenic food, which happens to have a lot of fish oil in it. She stinks. The house stinks. A lot. Not a little, a lot. So, we have bowls of vinegar in every room, helping to clear the air. It’s not that it actually clears the air, it’s just that its odor overcomes and masks the other odors and diffused as it is, actually smells kind of fresh and neutral. We learned this trick for dissipating smoke, back in the days when we let smokers in our house; it seems like another era entirely. I love vinegar. I don’t know how we’re going to last the month it takes to figure out if food allergies is the source of her problems. If we can identify the source, we can change foods…. Meanwhile, I love vinegar. Buy stock, as sales are likely to go up this month.

Happy trails to all. Wish me luck.