Gritty Grit

 

The last several days have been testing my mettle.  It has been a challenge for me just to tread water.  For me, the difficulties involved:

1.  A  rough bout with my TMJ.  It is typical for me to have a flare-up in my TMJ symptoms in the transition to Spring and in the transition to Fall, but this one that has occurred this year as we have been moving into Spring-like conditions has been the most painful that I have experienced in at least 15 years.  All my old tricks to deal with the pain and discomfort (lavaging my ear canals with peroxide and warm water, putting alcohol in my ears, fastidiously cleaning with weak peroxide the gum-line around my back molars, the use of anti-histamines and aspirin, warm compresses along my neck by my jaw and ear, and techniques I have for my trying to forcibly open of my Eustachian tube).... have not worked as well as usual and it has been a slow, painful process trying to return back to normal.  I have of course been wearing my bite splint very nearly 24/7 during this time too. I am only now beginning to experience a decline in the pain and discomfort.  But, I am damn glad it is reducing at the moment. The other aspect of my difficulty at the moment, is that the discomfort of the TMJ is making me feel rather blue, and I do not feel much in the way of motivation.  Mostly I am wanting to sleep, for during sleep I am not as aware of this aching pain and discomfort. 

2.  My desire to sleep has also made my runs continue to be difficult for me to accomplish.  By sheer grit and damnable determination, I have still met my goal of hitting between 52 and 54 miles ( ~84 -87 km) a week….. but it was not easy, and I would not say much of my last running week was fun.  Running can be and usually is a great way for me to get rid of stress, and I do usually feel good (albeit tired) when it is finished for the day.  But, this last week… it has been a real chore.  And, because during this last week I would often refuse to get up at the early time (5am)  I needed to get my run in and then get ready for the U, I would often only be able to accomplish part of my run in the morning, and had the need to finish it up in the late afternoon….and the thought of needing to run again would loom over my thoughts all day long.

3.  U work at this time of the semester is typically a bit of a drudgery itself under the best of circumstances.  The most recent research meetings I attend and present at with students have passed and there are not typically any additional ones to plan for until late June.   But, in the preparation for these most recent meetings, there is always a helluva lot of mess and chaos in my lab as my students often have images they have forgotten to take, data they had to analyze at the last minute, and poster building materials strewn all about.  So, at this time of year, my lab looks like a damn pigsty, and I have absolutely no energy to make any headway into cleaning it.  And, even though I DO try to goad the research students into cleaning like they should, I also realize this part of the semester is a very busy exam time for them, so I do tend to be a bit lax.  It usually takes until mid-April before my lab is back up to snuff.  The Covid-19 situation has only further-complicated the "mess" aspect of this time of the year. 

4.  And, teaching itself…probably my MOST favorite aspect of the professorial life I lead….. is also at a point in the semester where it even, is just a grind….. deadlines for writing and reading exams, grading of lots of papers and other work, the plethora of U events that must be attended to, the huge increase in students who suddenly realize they are NOT earning the grade they want, and are worried they may actually fail.... all these things rise dramatically at this point in the semester.  So, much of my time is NOT spent finessing and preparing my lectures….but is instead spent counseling students on how to try to salvage their grades (if possible), how to get them to see the bigger picture of how they are either not studying enough, or helping them to see they are not studying the right way to acquire DEEP knowledge.

5.  With Covid... the cyborging of teaching is also taxing, and I miss the direct interaction I usually have with students.  And, even though I am far better at it than I was.... cyborging still requires much more fussing and finagling and is not anywhere near as "free-flowing" and delightful to prepare as is face-to-face teaching.  

So, in a nutshell, it is normally a rough part of the semester, but the roughness has been further exacerbated by a global pandemic and a hellaciously bad TMJ Spring Season for me. I feel like I am being ground into dust by heavy grit in a mortar and pestil.  

I have been so utterly exhausted from effort and TMJ pain, that I have not experienced ANY dreams that I can recall during the last several days.  I suspect I am still going into REM sleep, but perhaps the exhaustion and pain have quelled my memory retention of these dreams.  

However, over the last several evenings, when I would go to bed, I would try to think about and remember an event that was very enjoyable that occurred about this time of the year (actually around early March), four years ago:

A big name book publisher at the U level invited a bunch of selected professors from different parts of the US to attend (expenses all paid by the publisher) a four-day workshop about their new (at that time) electronic offerings to accompany their textbooks and other classroom materials.   I was one of those professors selected, and with the event being held in sunny and warm Southern California, I sure as hell wasn't going to miss the opportunity to get away from the snow and cold for a little bit. 

The book publisher was really pleasant about the whole experience, and for the ~100 of us who were invited, they treated us rather like royalty in many regards.  Wonderfully creative food, lots of activities interspersed between demonstrations of their electronic products.  And in the evening, a richly diverse array of beverages and snacks.  I was able to sample a plethora of different craft beers across the evenings there.  

On the first evening of the event, I remember feeling gently, yet pleasantly "sloshy" after 2 or three of the rich, malty, craft beers, and I moseyed out of the hotel to the smoker's patio.  I was surprised, the hotel had created a pretty lavish, pleasant area for smokers, with comfortable benches and lots of decorative, robust California vegetation about.  When I reached the patio, I saw a fellow professor sitting.  He appeared to be a few years older than myself, sported a very bushy, walrus mustache and apparently as he was sitting there, and had actually nodded off.  Resting on the arm of his bench was a pipe he had and his pouch and a box of matches. I was rather surprised, as there are so few of us pipe smokers these days.  I sat on the next bench over in the circle, and quietly and methodically smoked my pipe for a while.  The fellow started to snore a bit, and I guess the mechanics or the discomfort of the snoring ended up nudging him awake and he looked around, and found his pipe and pouch and matches.  We introduced ourselves to each other (not having spoken earlier as we were from different disciplines and were in different subgroups at this event).  He was a microbiologist by training.  Every evening during the entirety of the event, he and I would end up meeting at the patio and talking together in slightly sloshy, animated tones while we smoked our pipes.  I learned about his kids and he mine.  We both talked about our wives and our family, and about our lives at the U we worked at.  Nothing too extraordinary.  But, it WAS awfully damn pleasant.  Each evening there in California was beautifully relaxed, the friendship was pleasant, and the pipes were a perfect accompaniment to each evening.  It was the first time in a helluva long time (and sadly probably the last time) that I spontaneously met another pipe smoker at one of these events and we formed a friendship over our pipes.  

Addendum.... the book sellers electronica was quite impressive, but I was still rather resistant to changing from the publisher I had been using for my texts for more than two decades.  Yet, I eventually *DID* change to the textbook for this class to TRY OUT the one offered by this publisher.  It has worked well.  I still think there are some things I like better about my prior textbook, but I have to admit this book publisher's electronica has proven exceptionally useful and valuable.... ESPECIALLY when Covid hit. I am thankful that I had this publisher's materials when March 2020 happened. 

PipeTobacco