spynotes ::
  September 26, 2006
It is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles

The early morning, at least this first one, wasn�t as bad as I thought it would be. It seems the ability to transcend lack of sleep honed while having a baby around the house has returned. The rule then was that as long as I got 3 hours of sleep in a row, I was fine.

I should have had a good night�s sleep � I turned in early enough. But I have this innate distrust of alarm clocks. I�ve never actually used one. I don�t believe I�ve ever woken up to an alarm clock. I always set the alarm � just in case � but I also always wake up before it goes off. When it�s a time I�m used to rising, this is no problem. I simply wake up at, in this case, 4:59 a.m. and turn off the clock before it starts beeping. But since I�m not sued to getting up at 5 a.m., I woke up repeatedly beginning at around 1:30, wondering how close it was to wake-up time. Hopefully this situation will improve as I get used to it.


There are definitely some pleasures peculiar to an early morning:

* Emerging from total silence and dark of my neighborhood to discover the one time of day my small town is a bustling metropolis. 6 a.m. and the train platform is packed, as are the highways the train runs along. There is a traffic jam in front of the parking lot entrance.

* Passing a golf course eerily shrouded in mist, looking like the set of a Dracula film.

* Listening to Steve Reich�s �Different Train� while riding an actual train.

* Watching the sun rise over the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago.

And most importantly�
* No waiting at the departmental copy machine!

Despite the crazy schedule, I really like this time slot. I am most definitely a morning person. I felt much more together than I do in the afternoon. Also, my class was much more interactive than the group I taught in the dreaded post-lunch slot last year. Lots of them were raising hands and participating. Some of them may even have been having fun. Most of the preregistered students showed up and only one shopper was there, so I feel like there�s a pretty good chance that most of the class is the class I�ll be dealing with. Interestingly (and not surprisingly), the one who emailed me saying that she�d die if she didn�t get into my class didn�t show.

I have a real office this year, too. One with a desk and a keyboard and a bulletin board and lots of shelves, some with useful books on them. Inexplicably, there is also an autoharp. I am most happy about the fact that there are trash cans � my last office didn�t have those. Instead of a window buried in scaffolding, I have a view out over the quadrangle. And it�s quiet � no more listening to the bagpiper practicing next door (although I have slightly mixed feelings about that � It gave me many headaches, but it was also most definitely atmospheric. It lacks a chair for visitors, though. But there�s one out in the hall that I could probably abscond with if anyone actually comes to my office hours. Which seems doubtful.

Getting back in the classroom is good. Teaching when not practiced is a cause of great anxiety. Teaching while it�s happening is great fun. And it�s really nice to sit down at my desk at 10:30 and feel like I�ve already had a good, accomplished day. And the day is just beginning. Now we�ll have to see if I can make it home in time to pick up AJ after school.

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