Fragments From Floyd

Laziness and lethargy loom ahead in a full week free of fifty-mile round trips to campus--nine days not requiring my presence in three labs and three lectures. Oh the luxury! I can hardly wait for the empty hours ahead when I will grade 40 research papers; read two chapters in text (Animal Behavior and Conservation Biology); create 6 hours of lecture for last two weeks of class; make out 80 question final exam from new material and first 3 tests; and grade 40 lab reports.

Then if I get that Ronco Day Stretcher I've asked for, I'll start previewing the Anatomy text and work on a syllabus for next term and see if I can make any headway on the App Studies Conference presentation coming up in March. And of course, we will have house guests for four days during the holidays, just to create the proper tension between responsibility and hospitality.

And so what am I doing so far with the very first day of my academic freedom? I get up on a Saturday at 430 and fritter away some little bit of time mewling about how busy I must be. Then I think I'll dawdle and browse through the image files to see if there's anything you haven't seen on Fragments. This of course will lead to a stream of consciousness googling session to research a word I want to use in description of said image or images. Which will lead to another blog post or posts, entirely.

Meanwhile, as the first one up (Ann worked until 11 last night) I have first crack at the coffee. So now I've had a chance to get all my nocturnal angst off my chest, I'm starting to remember the joys that can be realized by falling back on my strongest and most well-developed gifts: procrastination and denial. With these virtues to my credit, all work and no play is hardly the risk I make it out to be.

Besides, we already had plans for today that would make it impossible to keep my rostral portions constantly against the abrasive wheel. Late morning, we'll be heading to downtown Floyd to the Jacksonville Center to the silent auction for the Blue Mountain School. Buy something? Not likely. But all the AlterNatives will be there, and the Newly Retired. Plus, there will be a blues group playing and catering by Harvest Moon, the Winery and others.

While at the Jax, we'll stop by the studio and see the legendary (and possibly infectious) Doug Thompson--blogger many times over, new home owner and now permanent fixture in Floyd. (Get well soon.) Then to a friend's house for an apertif, and off to lunch at the winery with him and some of his medical friends we will meet for the first time. I'll take my camera along--just in case we should want to meander our way home along the Parkway. So there you've got one vacation day pretty well frittered away.