Friday Tiredness

This morning, I awake with a sense of exhaustion.  Last night was oddly noisy for my neighborhood:  the pops of firecrackers periodically, along with some voices here and there.  My neighbors left a light on all night--it's right across from my bedroom, which also disrupted my sleep.

And then there was yesterday--that, too, left me exhausted.

I was set to have a good day.  I went to observe a faculty member.  He had a wonderful class, despite a fire drill.

I got an idea for a poem, which I started to write while I was observing.  I wrote the blog post yesterday about the Navy Hymn and the missing boys.  I wrote a poem that intersperses my lines with lines from the hymn. 

I plan to send it to Rattle, for their weekly competition, Poets Respond (more details here, if you scroll down):  "Every Sunday we publish one poem online that has been written about a current event that took place the previous week. This is an effort to show how poets react and interact to the world in real time, and to enter into the broader public discourse."

But the afternoon unravelled quickly.  I don't want to blog too much about it, and happily, I don't have to deal with that kind of afternoon often.  It involved a student who needed to switch sections.  I saw that we had lots of options to help the student--others did not agree.  By the end, we had a solution, but it required much more energy than it would have, had it been handled differently.

I'm trying to reflect on how lucky I am--I could have the kind of workplace where people routinely said ugly things to me, and I'd come home feeling blicky all the time. 

Instead I'm surrounded by people who are doing amazing things and who are willing to work to help students.  Most of my colleagues assume the best of the rest of us.  It could be otherwise.

So, let me focus on the good parts of the day.  Let me not focus on colleagues who are leaving--yesterday was a day of farewell celebrations and surprise goodbyes.  Let me think about the colleagues who are still here, the ones who appreciate poetry and teaching and innovative approaches and all that we do. 

Let me appreciate the people who appreciate me.