stepping it up

I'm in ER. These are my "office hours," but guess what? Nobody's here. And they even have a paper due a week from today! I have a feeling most people are waiting until this weekend to start, which means I should have a nice flurry of questions to respond to when I return from WI on Sunday.

I just talked to this guy who was at a breakfast I went to this morning...the breakfast was for Dr. Mark Siegler, who is a bioethicist at the University of Chicago. He's giving a lecture this afternoon about bioethical challenges facing the 21st century, so they're parading him around campus so he can meet students, faculty, etc. He was actually pretty great--clearly knows so much about this field, but then was able to talk about it in a way that was very accessible to a "layperson." The breakfast could've been more of a discussion than it was--it tended to be dominated by the graduate students who were there--but I still enjoyed it.

Taught this afternoon. Didn't go as well as I would've hoped. I had grand plans and then caved because I didn't think I had enough time to do what I really wanted to do. It went okay, but I didn't get that rush. Sometimes I feel constrained with how the world religions course is done here--I would do things so differently, and I think the students would get so much more out of it!

I'm tired today, because I didn't sleep much last night, because I went to Chicago for a concert. The concert was moving at points, just plain fun at others, and being in the city last night really made me want to move to Chicago for a few months. There's just an energy there that I don't find here so much. I think it's partially in my head, and things might seem less thrilling there after I'd been there for a while, but still: a few months in Chicago would certainly not be a bad thing (and I'd be much closer to C-U and my friends here than if I went to Boston).

From now until November 1, I'm going to be insanely busy with work, but I also think I have enough "fun" events planned where I'll feel in balance. I can work hard during the week and then relax on the weekends. Per a friend's advice, I'm going to come up with a work plan for the next few weeks where I set goals for each day based on certain deadlines I need to meet. I think my goals will have to be lofty, if I'm going to get everything done, but I think I can do it, even if it means late nights in the library and slightly more tired days--maybe I'll work as hard as I used to as an undergraduate! Imagine. I sometimes think if I worked as hard as I did then, or if I studied as much as I see law and med students studying, I would get incredible amounts of work done, and know so much more than I do now. I'm not saying I want to work quite that hard, but I think I could afford to step it up a little bit.

Not much else to say right now. I feel content, if a little tired, and life seems fulfilling.