I got a great haircut today!  Actually had inches and inches chopped off.  It had hung to my shoulders but now is chin length.  What a relief to have the gray gone, as well as the split ends.  By the way, I had my color done also–high-lights and low-lights.  All in all, an enormous improvement.

The problem I face this evening, though, is that I don’t feel like writing–don’t seem to have the creative energy to make this meaningful and fun to read.  I’m going through the motions because I made the commitment to blog each day–not because I’m currently in love with language or happy with my ability to craft words into reasonably elegant prose that even borders on entertaining.  But then you could argue that I’m expecting too much–that it’s not realistic to demand my work be both elegant and funny, both memorably eloquent and amusingly so.

Alas, I’m less than perfect.  Guess I should keep that fact under wraps.

Three cheers for the weekend–or almost.  Let me clarify.  Generally I don’t teach on Friday, so Thursday begins a three day break.  However, this coming Monday is Martin Luther King’s birthday–a school holiday-so this should really be the start of a four day vacation from all things academic.  But, alas, I just received an email asking me to attend a meeting tomorrow.  And, mind you, this makes me want to scream–not just a little bit, but a lot.  I’m beginning to feel meeting-ed to death.   At this point  I only want  to stay home, almost warm, in bed.  I say “almost” because it’s so cold out right now and our house is so poorly insulated, that even under the covers my feet are not entirely toasty.  I know my attitude sucks.  But I’m not sure what to do about that fact.

On a more positive note I should mention that Rachel may indeed want to live in our house for the next year.  She seems to think our offer is too good to be true.  I don’t think she realizes how much the arrangement would benefit us.  Plus, she would have to deal with our dog Lucy’s insanely high-decibled bark.  Then again, Rachel has stayed with Lucy and knows how maddening the bark can become, and here again, not just a little maddening, but a lot, a whole lot.

First day of classes and all went well.  This was one of those days that reminds me what I love most about teaching–managing to make learning fun–communicating that I care–sharing the best parts of  me with the best parts of my students.

What amuses me the most, however, is that six University of Kentucky cheerleaders are enrolled in one of my classes.  I swear–this has got to be a first.  This group was appalled  to learn that I had never attended a UK basketball game–a near sacrilege for any Lexintonian–let alone for a university alumnus and current university instructor.  At any rate, I suspect their presence will create interesting dialogue in that class.  Hopefully I can cheer them on as writers, as we all tumble our way into a new semester.

In the midst of getting to meet my students for the first time and enduring all the first-day-of-classes insanity, I am also busy with the writing program’s mountaintop removal event scheduled for early April.  I had not anticipated the work associated with that to consume so much of my time.  Currently, I am trying to solicit art we can exhibit that evening and dealing with potentially competing agendas from artists and committee members alike.  One artist with whom I’ve communicated is sometimes difficult to wok with, but he does art on this stuff.  I feel like he always has to have his way.

Gosh, this post almost makes it sound like things are not going well, when indeed they are.  It’s just that I feel scattered already, this early in the semester.  This is not necessarily bad, only an indication that that I am busy, busier than I would like.  But maybe this will make the time go by more quickly, the time until I leave for Bangkok and other Asian destinations.  Hopefully, I will lead my own cheers as this semester gets started, cheers for my students success as writers and for my own success with all weight loss related endeavors.

Today has been nothing less than insanely busy, as I am getting ready for school to start tomorrow.  I’m afraid this may not bode well for the rest of semester, but hopefully the intensity will lessen and things will proceed at a more moderate pace.

On a less than positive note, I might mention the person we had hoped might live in our house this next year has decided that our back steps would be more than her knees could handle and that she is not up for a move at any point in the near future.  I understand how she  feels.  So we are without a house sitter, but not without potential candidates.  I emailed my former student Rachel a while ago to see if she might be up for the challenge.  We had considered her our best bet all along.

I swear I wish I had something, anything, of interest to share, but life has been reduced to the mundane drudgery that is my job–not that I would have considered it such before the prospect of Asian adventure.  However, the truth is that I enjoy teaching and at times absolutely love it.  And I’m sure I would feel that way today were it not for options that feel more appealing. 

At any rate, I start a new semester tomorrow, and, I believe, I’m up for the challenge.

This morning I attended the writing program’s all-staff meeting, which actually turned out to be a rather encouraging experience.  Andrea Lundsford, who directs rhetoric and composition studies at Stanford and also wrote the St. Martin’s Handbook I use with my classes,  discussed projects her students had done that both engaged them with the community and asked them to explore issues about which they felt passionly.  I found her to be quite inspiring–an attractive elderly woman with white hair coiled in barrettes above each ear.  The bottom line is this–she communicated a care and concern for her students that moved me and reminded me why I am teaching in the first place.  I felt affirmed.

I have yet another meeting here in the next 30 minutes to strategize further about our “Evening with the Mountain Keepers” event scheduled for early April.  I don’t feel like attending today.  I’d rather head home and blog from bed.  I just returned to campus from home, where I let the dogs out to go potty and cleaned out litter boxes.  I wish I hadn’t had to come back to school. But, alas, I’m here, willing and able to do what’s needed.

S. is in her Frankfort office this afternoon, hating what remains of her job more with each hour she’s forced to spend there.  I’m not exactly sure what she dislikes so vehemently.  I suspect it’s having to be there when her heart has returned to disaster response.  Once she has made up her mind it is difficult for her to wait, which, in fact, I  understand.  I sure as hell don’t want to be here at the University of Kentucky this semester.  I want these changes to hurry up and happen.

In conclusion, I must mention my concern that this blog is degenerating into mundane reports about daily events.  No one wants to read a simple catalogue of “I did this” and “I did that.”  Boring!  I’m not sure what the solution is, since not much is actually happening.  If I had more time, I’d be able to take the details of daily life and make them interesting.  Blah, blah, blah.  I should stop while I’m ahead.  Enough of this nonsense.

Good news!  I got on the scales this morning and discovered I have lost 3 pounds in the last week.  This motivates me.  However, I know I will not continue to lose at that rate for long.  Inevitably the early pounds come off more easily than the latter.  But, God, if I could average 2 pounds a week instead of 1, I would be able to get the excess weight off in half the time, with a good portion of it gone by the time I leave for Thailand in May.  This makes me feel more optimistic.

Similarly fortuitous is the fact that the travel section of today’s New York Times features an article about Phuket.  S. and I consider this a good omen.  We spent almost a week there in March of 2007–six days of lounging on the beach, soaking up the sun, and swimming in the warm, blue waters of the Andaman Sea.  One day we visited sites that were rebuilt after the Tsunami of 2004, and another we rented a scooter and explored the island.  By far, however, I preferred walking the shore in search of shells and coral and rocks–most of which I brought home to the states.  At any rate, Phuket is an especially magical place for us–one I’ve often thought of when fantasizing about a return to Thailand.  So its feature in this morning’s New York  Times suggests to us on some level that we are on the right page in our plans regarding Thailand.  It makes me feel affirmed–embraced by the universe.

In the midst of dreaming about Bangkok and about what life there might be like, I must get to work on school stuff this afternoon, preparing my first major essay assignment of the semester and entering student names in my grade book–not terribly tedious tasks but ones that must be done.  In the meantime, S. is cooking Indian food in the kitchen.  I realize am hungry–gotta run get lunch.

It seems we have actually found someone who wants to live in our house for the next year.  Our potential person, a fellow faculty member from the English department, wants to think about things for a few days before finalizing the arrangement.  I hope this works.  It comforts me to know that a responsible and caring individual will be living here and loving the animals we cherish.  It’s going to free me up, not only logistically, but also emotionally, to go back and forth to Asia or Africa or wherever assured that the details of life back home are well managed.

S. says it scares her how well things are falling into place.  Yet it sure as hell doesn’t scare me.  I think this is meant to be, and I have faith in the universe to arrange the nuts and bolts accordingly. 

By the way, yesterday’s office painting party proved a great success.  The entire process lasted approximately 4 hours, but now the walls appear a welcoming and calming green–woodland valley haze to be exact.  I’m glad to have completed that project and to now be working in an environment I had a hand in shaping.

I don’t know that I have much more to share–except to mention that I am still not looking forward to a long semester of grading papers.  Regardless, things get going with an “All Staff” meeting on Monday.  Classes begin on Wednesday.  In the midst of all of this, I remind myself that this semester is bound to be better than last.  My schedule in and of itself is far superior since my classes end each afternoon by one.

So, all in all our Asian adventure is getting off to a good beginning.  S. probably won’t go to Bangkok till the end of February.  That means a mere two month separation before I am able to leave the states around the first week of May.  It seems we’re building a bit of momentum–movement in the right direction.  I’m excited.

I unfortunately may need to keep this post brief, as I have to hurry off to my office for a “painting party.”  “What is that, ” you might ask.  Well, for a Christmas present S. bought me paint for the office I share with another instructor and several graduate students, some of whom are meeting me later this morning to begin applying the new teal over the now hideous blue.  Not that there’s anything wrong with blue.  It’s just that not all of the walls are currently the same shade, so in the fall we vowed to improve the appearance of the windowless space and voted to use the color S. then purchased.  So today we actually undertake the makeover.

However, I have not told any of these women about my plans to settle in Bangkok and not return in the fall.  It will be difficult to keep this quiet, as I am bursting with the urge to tell.  S. thinks I should not share the news with anyone until the paperwork in Atlanta is complete and job is guaranteed in that ultimate sense.  This could take until the end of the month.  In the meantime I am trying to focus on the here and now and get going with a busy semester.  I simply must make myself enjoy this process–appreciate the way each detail evolves into a fuller and more substantial experience in the end.

Tomorrow morning a professor from the English Department is coming to see our  house, as she may be interested in living here next year.  We’ll see what happens, but this is a positive development at the very least.  Almost immediately then S. and I need to begin transforming what is now our “junk room” into space for our house-sitter to live.  I suspect the bulk of the work will fall to me, depending on how soon S. has to leave for Asia.  This task will involve first finding room elsewhere in the house for all of the “junk,” currently stored there–items which are in fact less junk and more household stuff used too infrequently to have yet found a more permanent place to live.  After the room is cleared, we’ll be able to paint, before finally removing the disgusting brown carpet and sanding and finishing the floors.  It’s the sanding that I suppose will take most of the time.  I expect to spend weeks down on hands and knees getting up close and personal with sawdust and other airborne particles one would probably prefer not to breath.

With that being said, I should probably close and get ready for school.  The painting party begins soon.

S. got the job–opened an email around 7:30 this morning offering her the position!  Fortunately the news arrived in time to keep me out the morgue.  The wait was killing me.  Well, okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not knowing was, at the very least, excruciating.  So I’m relieved.  I’m excited.  Actually, I’m thrilled beyond belief!

Now I feel fairly certain I will not be teaching in the fall.  This feels good.  It’s not that I don’t like my job.  I love it, in fact.  However, I look forward to the break.  I’m excited about exploring my options overseas.  Perhaps, I’ll end up teaching in Bangkok.  Maybe, I can develop this blog into a book–work up a proposal that I can sell to an editor.  It seems that people might want to read about S’s doing disaster response, about our efforts to maintain a partnership amidst her need to travel internationally for 80% of the year, our accomplishing that by my chronicling the adventure, anchoring it textually, as we together take on this challenge in word and deed.  S. is in-deed the doer in our relationship.  I work with words–use language to image our expereince.

Does this sound overly ambitious?  Is it silly to want to write about this?  I’ve never before blogged.  I don’t know how to go about getting people to read what I write.  If anyone can offer advice, please post comments below.

The wait is killing me.  I may be in the morgue by morning, if S. has not received word from her NGO about the disaster response position in Bangkok.  Call me reactive, even histrionic, if you will, but I definitely don’t deal well with the indefinite.  I want to know where we’ll be six months from now, who will live in our house over the next year, when I can let my university know I may not be teaching in the fall.  I want a lot, for sure, but I feel nearly paralyzed by the uncertainty.

I did manage to take down our Christmas tree this morning, pack up most of our ornaments, and drag what’s left of the decidedly dead douglas fir to the curb–a carpet of needles marking its path to roadside cemetery.  And let me assure you that the effort to do even that much seemed enormous, as I fought lethargy to place each ornament in its box, each box in its bin, and each bin upstairs in the guest room until S. can help me stash them in the attic.

School starts a week from today, so I should certainly be preparing my syllabus.  I should be making reservations for my students to visit the library and contacting the volunteer coordinator from the non-profit my classes will be working with this semester as part of a service learning project.  I should be doing a lot, but I am, in fact, doing very little in that regard.  The uncertainty about our future leaves me lethargic and lacking  motivation to move forward with life as we currently know it.  I crave the upcoming challenge, so much that the logistics of life in Lexington feel unappealing and insignificant–especially compared to the potentially exotic that could be our not so distant future.

Certainly I’ll survive until we know something definite.  But, alas, I don’t like it one bit, so forgive me if I bitch and moan and whine.  My attitude will improve; I promise.