Backwards

Today I needed to do the reading for my class, which meets on Wednesday. I kind of forgot the thing where when you assign your students a lot of work, then it means a lot of work for you -- long papers = long grading sessions, lots of reading = oops, better reread it all because what if they ask questions? But reading at home proved problematic -- even though today was a holiday, it was extra extra noisy. Not only was the construction going full blast, but for some reason the couple downstairs decided to play Andrea Bocelli at the fullest possible volume, and while there are some pseudo-operatic singers that I can tune right out, he is not one of them. One of the articles I assigned is from the 1930s and reads as a bit archaic, and after reading the same paragraph four times I just gave up and thought "where can I go that's quiet?" And ended up at the beach. To do work. It was great! I got everything read, evened out the unattractive sports bra/tank top tan a bit, swam in between work units, watched adorable shore birds peck at the sand for whatever food item lives there, and drove home feeling rested, calm(ish), and having actually read everything I needed to read. Couldn't use the intertron to look up the supplementary articles I want to lecture on, but that was the smallest of prices to pay. I wonder just how late in the year working beach visits will be possible? I decided before I moved here that I would milk this place for all it's worth, to look a bit more for the joie in viving (of course, I also decided that maybe I should go anorexic, get highlights, learn to play dumb, and work on becoming a trophy wife), and I think I'm doing pretty ok. Now if only I could figure out how to bring the laptop and work on answering the approximately one million e-mails that I owe people.