Thursday, April 23, 2026

A Return--Briefly--to my Regularly Scheduled Thursday

My schedule today feels a bit crammed, but I remind myself that I've gotten spoiled.  For the past month, I haven't had my Lutheran Confessions class that meets by way of Zoom session on Thursday morning.  Today, I'll make the trek to the office even earlier than usual so that I can get my laptop set up for the class which starts at 8:45.  Then I'll have the last conferences of the semester with my creative writing students and then a writing day for my English 102 students.

I have my food packed--breakfast and lunch on campus.  I have my outfit picked out.  I am trying not to think about how tired I am and all I need to do in the coming weeks before we get to summer.

The last time we had an actual class meeting was March 19, which was the day after I had my meeting with the provost and my dean, where I was offered, and accepted, the tenure track promotion offer.    Part of my brain was thinking about all the implications of the meeting (happy implications) while I tried to focus on Reformation history and the class at hand.

In some ways, that's the story of the past year or two, or maybe my whole life.  I have multiple tracks in my head, multiple responsibilities tugging at me.  This week, I'm thinking about all the grading that I need to do, along with the paper for Lutheran Confessions that is due in a week, and oh, yes, a sermon for Sunday, let me not forget that.

When I step back, I reflect on the fact that I won't have to do this again--next week, my in-person classes are over.  Let me do what I always do:  take a deep breath, keep breathing, and keep prioritizing my to-do list.


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