In the middle of the middle.

Week seven of the semester is actually almost half way. Almost. Halfway is such a nice word. Halfway is when you reach minute twenty of a forty minute stint on the treadmill (divisible by five, four, two, ten) (and one). Halfway is when you've done six of your twelve-in-a-row consultations with students. Halfway is, regrettably, when you've eaten your ice cream cone to the point where the ice cream is level with the cone (this is a judgement call, but this is, after all, my blog).

However: halfway also means

• grading all  the revisions, even the ones that haven't yet been drafted
• reading and ranking all the job applications
• planning 80% of the five year program review
• going to an as yet undefined number of curriculum committee meetings
• writing two conference presentations
• finishing several tenure reviews

and so on.

Between now and the end, I will do all of the above--all of it, there's no way round but through--and I will also

• go to Tampa
• go to Minneapolis (and the Walker Art Center, yo!)
• keep teaching my wonderful, unpredictable students, and in the process
• read more poetry, theirs and others'
• watch more light materialize every single day
• see tulips and daffodils bloom in my yard
• watch the rose bushes come into leaf
• catch the lilacs blooming

and maybe I will

• read a few books, God willing,
• write a few poems,
• etc.

I was feeling overwhelmed when I started all this bulleting and right now I feel quite a bit better. That's because I'm just about to 

• go to bed. Which I hope I'll do 
• a lot of in the next seven or eight weeks.