Tuesday, March 16, 2010

expectations

The switch to spring, no matter how temporary, leaves me discombobulated. A student tells me that the spring semester has been harder because, well, winter is just so tough for people who need to bear down and work.

Except now, suddenly, it is spring!

Am I ready?

Sure, I’m biking to work now. That’s good.


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The lake, half solid, but in places, quite liquid.


My noon sprint down Bascom Hill for an espresso is easy. Pleasant even.

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[Just curious: what would you do if you spilled half your coffee on your white shirt minutes before going in to class?]

At the same time, the “no excuses” season is suddenly thrust upon us. Don’t sit still. Don’t not make plans. Look hard at what your next six months will be like. Because after that, it’s winter all over again. And the inevitable return to sleepy time.

But now, in March, aren’t I supposed to be leaping forward? Producing at the next level of energy and grand inspiration?


Thank goodness next week promises to be cool again. I'll get my bearings then. Because really, I’m not yet primed for this bout of good weather. I'm still throwing cold water on my face.


Biking home along the lake shore path, I think how transitions are tough. Though not for everyone. I pedal past the rowing house and I notice the team's out and practicing. Not on the lake yet. Something about the fragile ice cover perhaps. But they're ready. Even if it is mid March, they're ready.

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Oh, to shake off that coffee soaked shirt (so to speak) and get the muscles working again!

Soon. It just takes me a while to figure out the pulse of the new season.

4 comments:

  1. For smaller coffee spills, Tide's Stain Stick really works miraculously well -- at least on the fabrics I've used it on!

    I'm one of those for whom transitions are very difficult. Today was our first day of summer -- it hit 80 degrees, and you really needed the A/C in the car. I'm not ready. *sigh*

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  2. Let's not look to the weekend. Let's just pretend for a few more days that this is real.

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  3. One morning many years ago, when I was a young art director in a big ad agency, I was helping my boss, the creative director, gather his props for a presentation to clients already waiting down the hall in the boardroom. My boss took one last sip of coffee and spilled it all over his crisp white shirt and tie. Without missing a beat, he told me to give him MY shirt and tie. The presentation went well. My boss thanked me and gave me the rest of the day off. The next morning waiting in my office was a package containing a beautiful new shirt and tie of the highest quality along with a gracious thank you note.

    The sight of all those rowers made me smile. I use the same rowing machine every day as part of my workout, but I don't look nearly as good as those young men.

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  4. I have a somewhat different reaction to those rowing machines; they were my coachss' chosen implements of torture for eight years. I love the fact that Wisconsin takes rowing more seriously than any school between the coasts (several '04 and '08 Olympians rowed at Wisconsin) and that the student body actually seems to follow their races to some extent - even the best rowing schools in the Ivy League and Pac-10 usually don't get more than 200 people or so at any given race.

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