back in the classroom!
The semester's started up again, and thankfully the transition from doing nothing all day over winter break to actually needing to wake up and go places was relatively easy. I got sick with some cold towards the end of the break, and my sleep schedule got really messed up, so I was worried about my ability to just wake up in the morning and get to campus on time. Thankfully, the week before classes started, I performed a "hard reset" on my circadian clock and literally slept for, like, 16 hours straight. The "day" before, I had been awake all night and only went to bed at 10 AM, so I decided that even if I woke up ridiculously late, I wasn't going to get up until it was a reasonable hour to actually be awake.
This actually worked, and it honestly seems to have helped my sleep schedule generally, too! For literal years I've struggled with what might be a non-24-hour cycle, but lately (unless I'm REALLY tired), I more or less automatically wake up at around 7-8 AM. I've never been able to do that before. We'll see how long it lasts, however!
It's spring semester, so the students I'm working with have experienced at least one semester of college before now. This class definitely seems more attentive in certain respects than my sessions from last semester. Still, students here are quiet--getting them to participate can be pretty difficult. But it's still the beginning of the semester, and I think people are still quite shy in the first few weeks. Just need to give it time.
I'll be doing a lot of traveling in February and early March--a couple of campus visits for PhD programs, plus I'll be presenting at a conference. I'm very excited, but know it's going to be pretty tiring. I'm still waiting to hear back from several programs, but my top two have gotten back to me, and they were acceptances.
Politically, things are also absolutely insane, of course--but that's shock doctrine in action. I'm trying to keep my head attached to my neck amid all the chaos, and to try and balance realism with justified caution. I'm not looking forward to the next several years in US politics--the first trump presidency was exhausting enough and probably contributed to a lot of burnout I felt, and I just feel like this round is going to be more of the same (if not worse).
Ah well. On the bright side, this semester I'm actually able to set aside time to meet my dad on campus for lunch, which is always a good time. I'm also trying to be better about working ahead on projects so I'm not scrambling on anything, too. So far, so good!
- Marc