Beard & Moustache

I feel unruly and unkempt.  But it is that time of the semester, I guess.  My office looks like a tornado has ran rampant through every bookshelf and desk drawer.  My laboratory appears as if a herd of wild buffalo have tromped through it.  My Jeep AND my old pick-up both are strewn with debris.  My beard and moustache are looking a bit rough and ragged.  But it is that time of the semester.  It is nearing final exam week, which is actually pretty good for us professors, but the week or two before hand is triple the effort and activity of normal weeks.  Getting finals prepared and to the graphics office, the countless students (I have about 300 this semester) who haven't really been working or trying all semester come out of the woodwork and ask if I could be so kind as to give them "extra credit" because they cannot take the next classes in their program without passing my "terribly hard" class that they have "studied more for than any other class they have EVER had".  Also, getting next semester's book orders in, getting ancillaries, getting papers graded and back to the students, getting my own and my research student's abstracts critiqued and ready to send off for the next meeting we will go to in the Spring.  And on and on. 

So, it is a time of the semester that is SUPPOSED to be unruly and unkempt.  It is every year at this time.  It just requires a strong focus and a firm commitment to keep even keeled and steady in my resolve and effort.  The payoff is, if I kept my act together, keep firm in my resolve, that by Friday, I can begin the gentle downward descent into the gentle tranquility and peace of the rest of the semester and final exam week.  I can, if I succeed in the mountain of work this week requires, then I can spend time, recreating order from my chaos, clean my office, get my secretary a pile of work to do (that in effect clears my desk), get the lab back up to snuff, go get my hair cut, and my beard and moustache trimmed back into a more professorial manner, and feel my own circadian rhythms once again feel in alignment with the day-to-day. 

In regards to my pipe.  I am happy that my mistep on Saturday did not mean an elmination of my ultiimate goal (to become the "special occasion pipe smoker").  I think I have learned how to better plan for the future "Saturdays" that will arise.  I feel that I have my donkey-like (jack*ss*d?) stubborness back in full force, so that I should be able to continue my planned refraining from the beauty of the pipe and pipe tobacco until I next have the special occasion to indulge.  Sure, I miss the lovelly grace and charms of my mistress, my pipe.  But, I am also happy that I can dig my heels in and do what I say I am going to do as well.  I feel that I am growing in my knowledge and understanding of myself.  I still feel a bit of remorse that the classic, historical attributes I still feel about pipes and pipe smoking are something I am somewhat turning my back upon, but, I feel I am doing the right thing for me as a person in 2012.  It still seems an odd juxtaposition to think that my angst and desire to refrain from the pipe is so temporal.  If I were my age, and in my position, and this were instead 1912.... there would be no way that I would be selecting to refrain.  In that age, I would have looked at my hobby as the norm, and nearly an "expectation" of my manner and my occupation.  But, I need to keep in mind it is 2012 and not that more genteel time of 1912.

As the President I have the most respect for, Theodore Roosevelt, would have said, "Bully!

PipeTobacco

Today's (Tuesday's) Goal =0
Yesterday's (Monday's) Goal = 0 bowls
Actual consumption (Monday) = 0 bowls