Warming up to the new semester

The first day back on campus after winter break is always difficult. It's a Monday in January, it's cold and dark when I leave for work, and I have to deal with all the logistical details of an all-day pedagogy workshop when I'd rather stay home drinking hot tea, watching birds, and making desultory progress on our latest crossword puzzle.

BUT! A few minutes in the company of my wonderful colleagues and I'm happy to be here--hearing about their winter travels, listening to the travails of the person who had Covid and pneumonia over break and rejoicing that I escaped such a fate, hearing ideas flowing around the room and banging into each other in productive ways. It's all good! I have more meetings this afternoon and even more tomorrow (including one on the dreaded A word--Assessment), but somehow campus feels like a good place to be.

In the interstices between meetings I've been readying my office for spring classes, which start Thursday. I've shifted folders, copied syllabi, and tossed last semester's lecture notes; at some point I need to do something about the massive stacks of books that need to be put back on my shelves. 

But first I'm testing out a new piece of high-tech equipment. Gold star to whoever guesses what it is:

I know it looks like I'm reaching inside a fuzzy slipper some random Bigfoot discarded on my desk, but no: that's a heated mousepad. The upper panel holds a packet of something that heats up when I plug it into a USB port, and as for what that something may be, I have no idea. Magic pixie dust? Instant lava? Whatever it is, it gets very hot very quickly. Almost too hot. I'll have to develop a whole new line of complaints when I have icicles forming on every part of my body while my right hand steams in its own little sauna. Maybe a heated whole-body sheath would be more helpful, but then I'd never leave my office at all.

I can't get too comfortable in here because at some point I'll need to go upstairs and teach. Two classes this semester: U.S. Lit Survey, as usual, and an upper-level creative writing class called Life Writing. Memoir, biography, oral history, and all kinds of fun stuff, in a class a little too big for traditional workshop mode, but I'll make it work. 

And then I also have my administrative role, planning yet more pedagogy workshops on yet-to-be-determined topics and answering to a whole new group of interim administrators. Will I have to learn a whole new set of moves in the latest round of Musical Administrators, or will the old moves work just as well?

Only time will tell. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with a very warm right hand and celebrating the creativity of my colleagues.