Sunday, August 28, 2011

I Resent the Intimation That It's Already Fall

It's August, still, but just barely. The mood shifted in my absence, of its own accord, without my assent. Languid late summer gave way to that energetic crackle of the-week-before-classes-start, and I am dimly aware that I ought to buy pencils. The undergraduates are moving in, setting up their dorm rooms, excited for a new semester. I returned to Cambridge to find things pretty much as they were all summer: warm breeze through the window, feet up on the couch, fudgesicles in the freezer. Whatever shift occurred on campus this past week, it left our apartment untouched. Do I forge ahead into the fall semester?  In mood and thought I am still immersed in that easy absence of nervous excitement inherent to summer; there's just a little bit of it left, and shouldn't I do that little bit justice? I'm certain that I'll emerge from this happy summer indolence, make the shift, but it's all too early now. Classes begin August 31st -- appalling -- this year. I think I'll catch up once it's properly September.

In other news, I can't hear anything. I caught a cold while on the Hawaii field trip, and the congestion is awful. My poor little eardrums have been through a cruel Hawaiian altitude wringer -- Kilauea, sea level, Mauna Loa! sea level, Kilauea, sea level, Mauna Kea! sea level etc. etc. repeat. And then I got on an airplane. My ears still haven't popped, and everything sounds dim, distant. Oddly this lack of aural functionality is making it difficult to write -- I feel as though I can't hear my own internal monologue. Head is too stuffy. I'm off to chug some Gatorade and hope that things clear out.

-R.