TITLE: Fall Semester Hit Me Harder Than I Realized
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 28, 2020  9:23 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 (This is an almost entirely personal entry.  If that's not your
 thing, feel free to move on.)

 Last Monday morning, I sat down and wrote
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2020-12.html#e2020-12-21T08_30_39.htm">
    a blog entry</a>.
 It was no big deal, just an observation from some reading I've
 been doing.  A personal note, a throwaway.  I'm doing the same
 this morning.

 I'd forgotten how good that can feel, which tells you something
 about my summer and fall.

 Last spring, I wrote that I would be
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2020-05.html#e2020-05-14T14_35_15.htm">
   teaching a new course in the fall</a>.
 I was pretty excited for the change of pace, even if it meant
 not teaching my compiler course this year, and was already
 thinking ahead to course content, possible modes of delivery
 in the face of Covid-19, and textbooks.

 Then came summer.

 Some of my usual department head tasks, like handling orientation
 sessions for incoming first-year students, were on the calendar,
 but the need to conduct them remotely expanded what used to be a
 few hours of work each week to a few hours each day.  (It must
 have been even worse for the university staff who organize and
 run orientation!)  Uncertainty due to the pandemic and the
 indecisiveness of upper administration created new work, such as
 a seemingly endless discussion of fall schedule, class sizes, and
 room re-allocation.

 One of the effects of all this work was that, when August rolled
 around, I was not much better prepared to teach my class than I
 had been in May when I solicited everyone's advice.

 Once fall semester started, my common refrain in conversations
 with friends was, "It feels like I'm on a treadmill."  As soon
 as I finished preparing a week's in-class session, I had to
 prepare the week's online activity.  Then there were homework
 assignments to write, and grade.  Or I had to write an exam, or
 meet with student's to discuss questions or difficulties, made
 all the more difficult but the stress the pandemic placed on
 them.  I never felt like I could take a day or hour off, and when
 I did, class was still there in my mind, reminding of all I had
 to do before another week began and the cycle began again.

 That went on for fourteen weeks.  I didn't feel out of sorts
 so much as simply always busy.  It would be over soon enough,
 my rational mind told me.

 When the semester ended at Thanksgiving, the treadmill of new
 work disappeared and all that was left was the grading.  I
 did not rush that work, letting it spread over most of the
 week and a half I had before grades were due.  I figured that
 it was time to decompress a bit.

 After grades were in and I had time to get back to normal, I
 noticed some odd things happening.  First of all I was sleeping
 a lot: generous naps most days, and a couple of Fridays where I
 was in bed for ten hours of rest (followed, predictably, by a
 nap later in the day).  I'm no insomniac by nature, but this
 was much more sleep than I usually take, or need.

 My workout data told a tale of change, too.  My elliptical
 and bike performances had been steadily showing the small
 improvements of increased capability through May or so.  They
 leveled off into the summer months, when I was able to ride
 outside more with my wife.  Then fall started, and my
 performance levels declined steadily into November.  The
 numbers started to bounce back in December, and I feel as
 strong as I've felt in a long while.

 I guess fall semester hit me harder than I realized.

 In most ways, I feel like I'm back to normal now.  I guess we
 will find out next week, when my attention turns to spring
 semester, both as department head and instructor.  At least I
 get to teach programming languages, where I have a deep collection
 of session materials in hand and years of thinking and practice
 to buoy me up.  Even with continued uncertainty due to the
 pandemic, I'm in pretty good shape.

 Another effect of the summer and fall was that my already
 too-infrequent blogging slowed to a trickle.
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2020-12.html#e2020-12-10T15_36_51.htm">
   The fate of most blogs</a>
 is a lack of drama.  For me, blogging tends to flag when I am
 not reading or doing interesting work.  The gradual expansion
 of administrative duties over the last few years has certainly
 taken its toll.  But teaching a new course usually energizes me
 and leads to more regularly writing here.  That didn't happen
 this fall.

 With the semester now over, I have a better sense of the stress
 I must have been feeling.  It affected my sleep, my workouts, and
 my teaching.  It's no surprise that it affected my writing,
 too.

 One of my goals for the coming year is to seek the sort of
 conscious, intentional awakening of the senses that Gide alludes
 to the passage quoted by that blog post.  I'm also going to pay
 better attention to the signs that the treadmill is moving too
 fast.  Running faster isn't always the solution.
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