dual personalities

It was a long week — equal parts fraught, migraine-inducing meetings and low comedy. Yesterday, we could not get the computer to work in my classroom. I say ‘we’ because several tech-savvy students attempted to solve the problem. We rebooted the machine and pushed every button we could find — without result.

We called OIT, and in due course a technician arrived, walked right up to the podium, and touched the mouse. The computer sprang to life. The technician gave us a friendly smile and left. We laughed sheepishly, and to cover our embarrassment, threw ourselves into earnest conversation about Roman tactics at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC. Now that’s a novel way to inspire discussion.

Spring break starts today — with a snowstorm on the way — but that’s okay because I have no plans for the week other than to read a biography of Julius Caesar and steel myself to go back to work and face the next round of mad initiatives. It is no exaggeration to say that rational discourse no longer takes place in academia. What I need is a good Shakespearian pep talk:

O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day…   

(Henry V, Act 1, Scene 1)

I’ll turn everything off and stop checking email, get out my watercolors or pick up my embroidery and rediscover how peaceful it is to sit quietly and work creatively.

Okay, my meager efforts won’t come close to John Singer Sargent, but painting is therapeutic, and by God’s grace, life is good!