I have come to the conclusion that time, much like age, is a state of mind.

As though to compound the Billy Pilgrim-like feelings that I expressed earlier this week, Tufts has decided that today (Thursday) is in fact Monday.

This is not an uncommon practice for universities.  There are certain days which must be taken/given off, certain days during which campus must be closed, and in order to ensure that each class block is given ample time during the semester, often the flow of the Newtonian universe is manipulated in order to pay homage to the gods of academia.

This semester has been notoriously difficult to get in the saddle of.  As soon as I had thought that I established a rhythm, a giant snowstorm named after a vengeful sea captain (or a clown fish, not too clear on that one) threw everything off.  Campus was closed for several days, necessitating re-arrangements in the semester’s schedule and my reading/general life flow which completely threw off the very light, narrow groove that I had

I have no pertinent pictures to include with this entry, so here’s a picture I took of a tiger at the San Diego zoo last year.

somehow managed to attain.

What next?  Cats and dogs living together?  Mass hysteria?  Cloudy with a chance of meatballs?

My conception of time is often amusing to me.  When one lives and breathes academia, it’s extremely easy to lost track of the fact that the rest of the world does not.  Simply because my years begin in September and end in May does not mean that the same is true for everyone else.  I’m often stopped short because normal people don’t understand that I obviously can’t come out in the near future because it’s finals crunch and why would they even bother asking? (fact: because they don’t know/remember/care that it’s finals time and have no sense of what it means to live in a world where one lives and dies by paper deadlines).

These troubles are mirrored by certain misconceptions about my working hours.  I know that I’ve often commiserated about this on here.  One of the wonderful parts of my job is the ability to make my own hours and, thereby, the ability to work when I best function as opposed to conforming to some artificial schedule which a tyrannical boss (or tyrannical system) has imposed upon me.  I tend to function best in the early afternoon to early evening; certainly not in the morning.  I avoid late nights if I can, but I would prefer to work a late night than an early morning.  As such, it’s a frequent occurrence that I sleep past the normal appointed time for “the working man” to be up and I’m often sitting at my desk wearing my pajamas when my roommate/local friends/house guests/partner in crime drop by after work.  This doesn’t mean that I’m not working, it doesn’t mean that I’m lazy, it just means that I like to sleep until 8:30 (9 if I can manage it) and will work until 10 or 11 if I have to to get my work done.  I would say that, during an average workweek, I clock at least 40 hours (sometimes as much as 80-100 if I’m working on projects and grinding out the end of the semester; I’ve meant to do an experiment and actually clock my working hours for a month just to clear up this little misunderstanding, but I haven’t yet remembered to do it).

Next week, we’re back to “normal” schedule for a block of several weeks.  I’m very much hoping that this normalcy will restore some feeling of rhythm to my otherwise nutzoid life; or at the very least a small dose of consistency.  Even theatre people need some consistency otherwise the world is just madness and chaos.  Madness, I tell you!