Something more on the personal side -- tune out if it makes you goosey

Disclaimer:

I'm not sure I want to go here with this blog but with some trepidation, I'm going to dip a toe into the really personal.

Something happened to me this summer. I've changed. I have nothing left to accomplish for myself. No desire to accomplish anything. It has always been wonderful to see a student do something she has not been able to do before. The desire for that remains. But I have lost the desire, the drive, for anything for me.

I am not going to make more money than I am making now. The university has been clear about what it intends to expend for teachers. What’s more, the likelihood of students flocking to higher education diminishes with every new gadget. Moreover, the possibility of students flocking to journalism programs when every day they hear journalism is doomed is even more remote. We will never have the computer lab we have needed for 10 years, at least. I give. I will just use what I have and teach as well as I can for now. The program will just be what it is. Which, in my opinion, is darn good, if gadget impoverished.

I am not going to write the great American novel. Even if I had the idea – which I don’t – I would not have energy for it. I will just continue to scribble in my notebooks whatever comes to mind. Sex and the sensual come to mind often, so the notebooks will be lethal with them. It is, after all, what I write best.

I would love time to read, but I am not going to get it. Might as well bide my time until the day I retire, then start reading like mad. No sense beating on myself about it now, eh?

I can fill my days perfectly well staring out the window, watching for the chipmunk, the humming birds, the gold finches, the molting cardinals, the maddening squirrels, the butterflies, and the creature. The view is limited in scope – no Pacific Ocean out there – but unlimited in interest and excitement, precisely because it is alive and always in motion.

I have learned these things this summer. And now it is as if I had always known then.

--Lofflin... BTW: I suspected but did not know the video was fake. Thanks for ruining my day.