Please sir, I'd like some more....

Time is not a luxury. Nor is it a right or an entitlement. Time is just there. Like oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. Or dirt, grass or sun. People speak of time lost or wasted like it was a set of keys or a half-eaten hamburger. They refer to the best time of their life as though it has morphed into some chocolate fudge brownie sundae topped with $100 bills.

Time, I've decided, merely exists to give us something to schedule with. Time passes, you know, like me passing the guy in front of me who has decided to ignore the 65mph sign and keeps going 55. Days begin and end. We've counted them into months and years but I think the only real thing we can measure are days. The sun rises and sets. Except in Alaska and parts of Canada where the sun never really sets during the summer or rises in the winter and they are just out of luck.

We count revolutions around the sun and call them a year but the science isn't perfect so maybe we should stick with revolutions. The native Americans used the cycle of the Moon. Must have been inspired at some point.

I'm Mark and I'm 33 revolutions old.

Culmination and Crashing

The semester is coming to an end...always a great sense of relief knowing that I have only a little left to do and I get a break. Much needed as there wasn't really a break between semesters earlier this year. And then I start in on the death march. I know my wife hates it when I refer to these last 4 semesters like that but I'm trying to be optomistic.

This coming fall I will have class 4 nights a week. It really hit home when I was telling Ethan and Adeena that they needed to be big helpers for Mom because I wouldn't be home until after they are in bed. Adeena asked if I can at least come in and tell them goodnight after I get home but it may not be until after 8:30pm and I'd hope they were sleeping by then. On the up-side, I know my kids still love me and like me around when they say things like that.

My schedule will be kinda crazy because it's going to require I get up half an hour earlier. Which most people wouldn't like but could deal with. But I'm getting up at 5:30am right now. 5 just sounds too scary to think about. We'll see how that goes.

And lastly, I have a great wife. She inspires me, encourages me, expects the world of me and still loves me when the best I can do is give her a little clod of dirt.