geckos

This morning as I swept rat poop and dead crickets out of my classroom, I thought about how I am here -- in a different way from being other places. The problem is I still can't figure out how to describe it. It's something like a distinct lack of "and then" or "so that later" to being here and to the things I do here. There are deadlines, but there is so much time to meet them that (for the first time?) they are stresslessly achievable. Maybe the feeling is a lack of urgency. Whatever it is, it's contagious, and I'm going to say that it was here before I was. And mostly, it is super pleasant. Sometimes -- once, on a rainy day -- it feels like being on a very long train ride, but in general it feels like being somewhere without needing to be anywhere else.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. So maybe that will be the end of this pleasantly purgatorial phase. (But maybe not; my workday goes from 8:30-1:30 with an hour-long break.) In any case, it will be exciting and probably a little intimidating and all those other things. So here goes!