Grrrrrr.

Call me greedy, I don't care. But the fact that CU decided to reopen today under 'normal operating conditions' seems to reflect denial of the current weather conditions here. In fact, 'normal operating conditions' is not the first phrase that pops into my head when I look outside and see 22 inches of snow and flakes falling horizontally. In about an hour I am going to have to leave for Boulder to teach my night class, and I have a feeling that even if I decide to hold it there will not be many students there; however, since I cancelled class myself the first week of the semester (to attend a conference) I am not allowed to cancel a second class because the contact hours for the course start to be called into question. Thus, I am at the mercy of the administration and not too happy about it.

Might I add that all the school districts are closed, all the metro area cities are on accident alert, and - to quote the National Weather Service:

RESIDENTS SHOULD EXPECT WINTER STORM CONDITIONS TODAY. 

ROADS WILL REMAIN SLUSHY AND SNOWPACKED WITH ROAD CLOSURES A POSSIBILITY.

 IF YOU MUST TRAVEL TODAY...TAKE ALONG A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT INCLUDING 

WARM CLOTHES...FOOD AND WATER AND A SHOVEL. 

Uh, yeah. Business as usual, normal operating conditions. No problem.

Here's the view out my window right now:

Snow day!

One of the great secrets of adulthood, I think, is the fact that adults secretly take as much pleasure in parts of life as children. For some reason, the serious adults don't show their pleasure as much, which is why I will never be a serious adult. That said, I am happy to announce that today is a...

SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!

I actually think I enjoy these much more now than I did as a kid, probably because I have so much more responsibility now (seriously, how hard was going to school in retrospect?). Dave got a call about 7:30 that his colleagues were not going into the office, and I decided not to drive into CU just a few hours before they announced they were closing campus. There's about 10 inches in Denver so far, with more expected overnight and into tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow will be a snow day as well, which will mean my class is cancelled!

We took Fergie to Cheesman Park about 11:00 for a run in the snow - this is the closest I could get to taking a picture of her. She ran headfirst into the snow and tumbled around, sending up a rooster tail of powder behind her like a canine snowplow.

In short, she loves it (and her special striped sweater - she gained 6 pounds since last year, a 20% increase in her body mass, so she will need a new waterproof coat for this winter. Yes, I know it's ridiculous, but I don't care).

On the way back it took about three tries for Dave to get the Subaru up the little hill and back into the garage, so I don't think we'll be going anywhere for a while.

Pie

Every two weeks at the Math and Science Seminar we do a potluck lunch - usually this starts out with a big bang where everyone tries to impress, then mid-semester when everyone gets busy we start to have freeloaders (myself included) and the pickings grow slimmer. A few semesters ago all we had were the 10 Taco Bell tacos I'd picked up on my way in, and last time we had a few containers of Whole Foods salad and a bag of Halloween candy. Unfortunately, these snacks did not multiply like the fishes and loaves between the 20+ people at the seminar.

So this week, I decided to make an effort and bring something nice. Made with an assortment of apples I picked at the Ya Ya Orchard a few weeks ago with Dave, Rick, and dad.

The New Normal

Several people have asked me in the last months what's going on with the blog, why haven't we been updating the blog? To a certain extent it's probably because Dave and I both joined Facebook this spring, but the truth is that the short little status updates you post there are a totally different way of writing, and a less coherent way of documenting our life experiences. And I do have a lot I want to document - a few more trips this summer, Fergie's amazing transformation into the best dog into the world, the twists and turns of Dave's new job (and, let's admit it - new life mission). But first, I want to write about something for which I've got no pictures, and didn't have to go anywhere to experience. I realized that the new perspective on work and life that I've developed in the last few months - that I'm calling 'the new normal' - should finally allow me to open up some space to start blogging again. Let me explain why.

So what's the new normal? Let's start with the first normal, the original normal, that I experienced as a student and to some extent as a teacher. There's a lot of work to do, but at some point - after your final exam, after turning in final grades for the spring semester - it's done. Your work is finished, and now you can go watch movies or sit on the beach and have absolutely no regrets in your mind that there is work to do, because there won't be for a while. You are truly free.

Enter graduate school - the first semester or so was still the first normal, but then I started to develop my own research interests, my own projects, my own thesis...which then started generating more projects, more interests, more papers...and on and on. This became the second normal, which was awful mostly because I was still anticipating that feeling that I got with the first normal - only it never came. So what I had was this completely unfulfilled sense of anticipation for the great relief when all the projects were done, the papers were turned in, and I could finally relax. But the problem is that it will never stop - even in retirement, it will never stop. I thought I had it sort of under control by the end of graduate school, but my post-doc and first years as an Assistant Professors multiplied the demands on my time in ways I could never have anticipated.

In the process of living life in the second normal, I was always in this hyped-up state of stressing over this deadline, that review, this lesson plan, that conference call, the other presentation, no not that presentation, but this one, the revision, the proofs, the applications, the signatures, the advising sessions, the meetings, the meetings, the meetings, the articles to read that never get read, that chapter I should be working on but can't work on until after the conference deadline, and oh I haven't written that conference proposal yet anyway, but can't until I finish grading these papers, and on and on and on.

Deep breath.

But that's just it - somehow I realized in the last couple of months - I'm not sure how - that this second normal is actually the way life is always going to be. If I were to switch jobs - switch universities, switch to a research position - this work would stay with me. That's because it's my work, and actually, the total hysteria is - paradoxically - a sign that it's all going well. REALLY well.

Whoa. And huh? Doesn't being FINISHED mean you're doing well? I have learned that it doesn't. Good work begets more good work. Good work begets publicity. Publicity begets more contacts. More contacts beget more opportunities. Well-selected opportunities beget more good work, and the cycle continues.

So the new normal is, in some ways, parallel to the final stage of grief - it's acceptance that this is way things are going to be, and there's absolutely no advantage to stressing out over everything because it's never going to go away - and if it does, then that's a whole other problem that's not worth talking about. The new normal is the ability to ignore the impending deadlines and the work that needs to be done in favor of going to the park with my husband and my dog, having lunch with a friend, watching a baseball game with my dad, or reading the an entire New Yorker in a sitting. Because there's no point in waiting for it all to stop.

I announced my resolution to a graduate student in mid-August: "I've decided that I'm not going to get stressed anymore." She laughed in my face, and then, seeing my expression, got herself under control and said, "Oh, you're serious?"

Well, yes, I am. Welcome to the new normal.