Ok - Back To Work!

This has been a tough semester so far!  Even after turning down some offers, to teach, I've taken on five classes - a heavier teaching load than most of my full-time academic colleagues carry - and that is in addition to the work I do through my business, ReasonIO, my service on the Modern Stoicism team and as editor of Stoicism Today, and the video, blog, and podcast content I produce.  There's also slowly getting back in shape with regular exercise, and living a fairly normal life with my wife, our pets, my kids (when they visit), and friends and family.

If it wasn't nearly all - on the whole - positive stuff, then in describing my days, I'd use that old expression about trying to stuff the ten pounds of you-know-what into the proverbial five-pound bag.  It does present its challenges, to be sure.  There's very little "give" in the schedule and the calendar, and I'm often moving from satisfying one obligation or requirement right on to the next one.  Sometimes I liken it to threading needles, one after another after another.

Unfortunately that leaves very little time for things like getting sick and gradually getting over being sick.  Even worse, illnesses not only arise with their regular unpredictability, but they're incredibly resistant to being put off to later dates in the calendar.  The last few weeks, I've been wrestling with one of them - or perhaps more than one - which for the most part has allowed me to keep on cranking away at work, but which demanded its price in return.

I'd work for a while, and then feel fatigued, fuzzy-brained, light-headed.  So, then I'd rest - either napping or reading - and if I felt good enough, I'd get back up and get right back into work again until I'd crash.  My lecture style is very interactive and engaging, so at the time I'm holding my classes with students and delivering talks for the general public (even the online events), I have and spend a lot of energy, which then is depleted once the session is finished.

This week, I actually did something that is a relative rarity for me - cancelled classes due to illness.  I was tempted to cancel my MIAD classes, but decided against that, since they only meet once per week (for 2 1/2 hours at a crack).  But I did cancel one day of my Marquette morning classes and one day of my morning MATC classes.  Not something I like to do, but it was a necessity this time around.  Yesterday and today, I didn't attend an academic conference at Marquette that I'd long planned to go to - though I do plan to walk to the Aquinas Lecture, given by Robert Brandom, tomorrow.

Now, although I'm not fully recovered, I'm starting to feel a bit better, well enough to start digging myself out from under the mountain of backlogged writing work, course development, grading, correspondence, and other obligations that have been put off this last week.  I started catching up on email yesterday.  Nearly all of today is dedicated to course matters - grading, creating quizzes, developing resources, and the like - though I do hope to feel well enough to shoot some video footage this afternoon or tonight.

I'm also hoping to resume writing pieces and updates here regularly as well.  If not daily, as I'd hoped, at least every day or so.  And perhaps, next week, I'll get back to the gym as well.