2007-05-25 - 7:06 a.m.

...end of week....

This entry cross-posted here

Today is the last day of a busy week. Our search committee meeting took more than three hours yesterday. It was basically an amicable meeting. Just long. I kept having to go to the bathroom. Afterwards I wanted to SLEEP. And then I came home and couldn't get to sleep. Too much light, too many interesting books to read.

And now my body has me waking up between 5:30 and 6:30am every morning - which for me is akin to breathing at a new time of day. Actually it's not so bad because I rather like mornings. I like how the world smells in the morning; I like hearing the birds; and I love how the air feels. And, I like getting myself to work at a somewhat proper time of day instead of my normal late morning time. The trouble is that I also like late afternoons and evenings. I love the way the light changes from my office, and I love hearing the cacophony of university sounds slowly disappear, so that the only things left are the birds and the wind (okay, and the buses, and occasionally the digger on the construction site...). Anyway the gradual subsidence into silence tells me that it is soon time to leave the office, and this combination of tranquility and pressure makes it my best time of day to get some writing done. The end result is that I am going to work earlier and leaving work later. sigh. At least I brought a sleeping mat into the office yesterday, so that I could grab some midday shuteye. But the other trouble is that I don't notice that I'm dead tired until the end of the evening writing time. I'm going to have to work on that..

This Spring is my first experience with the change in the light in Vancouver, and I can understand why people love it here. It already feels like a German summer, and the light and temperature are simply invigorating. Of course, not so good that I should be getting MORE sleep...but hey, I'm just following the needs of the bod.

There is something about the change of seasons that seems to make people nostalgic. I know that I feel that way, and Spring and Fall are also the times of year when I get the most emails out of the blue. I think it must happen because the smells change so quickly, and smells are what trigger our historic memory. It's also the visuals though. Yesterday, K and I were watching Mizzy in the back garden, pouncing playfully on invisible insects in the grass. I haven't seen her do that since I lived in the Schubertstrasse. If I had to imagine a peaceful place (and believe me, I'm reading a LOT of books about 'picturing a peaceful place' right now), it would be sitting on my terrace in the Schubertstrasse as the light changed to blue, listening to the Amsel sing, and watching Ignatious Igel (our resident hedgehog) cross the garden while Mizzy and Lyra capture invisible bugs. The smell of this Spring has placed this image very dominantly in my head.

Anyway, I am off to Peninsula University today. I'm not quite sure what I am doing apart from reading papers and writing. Actually, I did want to talk with some of the people there about a couple of papers that I've read recently, to get their opinions on them. The Crazy Balkan will be there which means there will be both discussions and fun to be had. She thinks that she can psychically 'sense' when people are pregnant. So far I seem to have slipped past her psychic radar...we'll see what happens this week.. Hee hee! She's very entertaining. Other than that I'm thinking of asking her if she wants to work on a paper with me.

And then it's home for another night up in bed, reading and waiting for sleep.