After last semester when, yes I was busy, and yes sometimes it was insane (note to self: read posts written in November to remember just how insane.) but overall I felt like I had some spare time, I decided to leap at a chance to do an internship this semester.  And to get involved in a couple of student organizations.  And to help the school look at new faculty and curriculum issues.  So OK, maybe any one of those things would have been enough. 

My internship is really interesting and corresponds with my natural interests, so it was something I actively pursued.  I work with the Ann Arbor District Library 8 hours a week doing research to help them design a delivery system to get materials out to people that can’t (or won’t) come into the library.  Eight hours doesn’t sound like so much time, but given there is no schedule and the four classes have specific assignments and midterms and papers due I am finding it difficult to set aside time to work on this each week.  I am only at the library for 4 hours a week, I have to find the other 4 hours to work on this project on my own.  Which is why I’m here at this time of night considering how much I need to get done on the project this weekend, instead of sleeping.

Remind me, when it comes time to schedule next Fall semester to volunteer for one extra thing, not three. Not that it will do any good, but remind me anyway!

This morning, after dressing in multiple layers, donning a heavy coat, hat, scarf and gloves that do not match but are warm I ventured out with the dog. It was sunny; blue skies, white snow and it didn’t feel like the -3 degrees that the weatherman said it was. Of course long johns under jeans and a turtle neck heavy sweater will do that! As the sun rose above the trees I heard a robin’s song. There is hope.

On my way into campus sitting on the bus and feeling like a stuffed sausage under all my clothes, I watch the world go by. I see several large flocks of robins on the ground along the way, and one flock in a tree, looking for all the world like red Christmas ornaments. We travel the north neighborhood and a woman gets on the bus with dreadlocks almost down to her waist, seashells and beads woven into the hair. She settles in front of me, digs in her bag and pulls out a book to read. It’s in French. A few stops later the bus is beginning to fill up. A man climbs on board juggling his backpack, his cup and a book. He settles in next to me and I squish over against the wall to give him room. He reads Proust as he sips his tea. I continue my musings and notice a bright red cardinal in the scrub along the road. More students climb aboard. The quietness of our “library bus” is shattered with talk and laughter. The languages I hear are not mine, but my place on the bus feels right. It’s another morning in the life of a lucky student. Lucky even if it is -3 degrees this morning.

I spent the weekend getting ready for two presentations I have to do this week.  Neither of them is particularly difficult or stressful, but I am obviously more worried about them then i thought I was, because I dreamed about them all night last night.

I am going to be doing a role playing exercise with a group of Detroit teenagers after school today.  I’m part of UM’s CIC group, an organization that tries to get information technology skills into communities.  The kids are doing a project that involves interviewing directors of youth organizations, and we’re giving them a chance to practice their interview skills in a safe environment first.  I’ve worked up all the logistics of the exercise, we’ll see if it works.

Tomorrow I have a presentation on the  context of a project I’m doing with another student on the Oregon State Library’s portal to the Internet for Oregon school districts.  It’s a really interesting project, but it’s a lot of work to get all the data together for this presentation.

So last night I dreamed about the Oregon project in conjunction with the Detroit project, where I was trying to teach the Detroit kids the information about the Oregon school districts internet connections.  It wasn’t going well, and my partners in the two projects, all of whom were in my dream were not much help.  The dream went on and on throughout the night, even though the dog got me up twice.  Whenever I went back to sleep, there were those kids and those school districts and those group members waiting for me.  I am exhausted!

The good news I guess is that the Detroit schools are closed today because it’s negative 8 outside this morning.  So I have another week to not worry about that presentation.  And the Oregon school district project is really looking good, thanks to my project partner.

So today maybe I can catch up on the other classes I have and enjoy looking out at the white snow and blue skies from the comfort of my living room!

The sun is coming up here, and it’s -3 degrees outside. You wouldn’t like that, but you would enjoy how beautiful everything looks with the snow, the sun and the blue skies.  You’d be going to church, reading the Sunday paper, going for your daily walk with Mom and later making a fire in the fireplace as you waited for your four children to call with birthday wishes.  So here you go, Dad.  Happy 78th birthday!  We miss you, but we know that you and Mom are still walking together.

Here are three things I am glad about from today:

1.  As I was riding the bus into campus this morning around 9:00 I thougt I saw, flying high overhead, two robins.  I just caught their rusty undersides, and I wasn’t sure they were robins, as the sun was still low and the air had that red quality about it anyway.  But a block further along there was a tree that  was just covered in roosting robins!  A whole flock of them!  I know that some robins stay around all winter, but a whole flock?  Can I hope that means spring is on the way?

2.  In my 502 lecture (Cognitive Psychology) I realized it was OK that I didn’t read chapters 2 and 3 last night. I gambled and went to sleep last night without finishing the reading assignment, but I understood the lecture without having read the material. (Does this make me a risk-loving person?)   So I am not so far behind as I might have been, nor as lost.

3.  Driving home tonight the moon came up.  Did anyone else see that big orange moon coming over the horizon about 6:00 tonight?  It lit up the snowy fields I was driving through and was just beautiful. 

So, regardless of the fact it’s only 9 degrees outside now, and the windchill is well below zero, I have three things to be glad about. 

It’s Friday night and tomorrow I don’t have to go out in the cold.    Oh wait, that makes FOUR things I’m glad about! 

Two more chapters to read on Cognitive Psychology before I sleep.  Or not.  It’s way too technical for me, causing my eyelids to close.  Psychology should be much more interesting than this!  I’m remembering when I took a similar course in undergrad more than 30 years ago.  I was surprised then that I didn’t like (or do well in) the class.  It appears nothing has changed.  Apparently the benefit of added years of experience hasn’t given me any advantage at least with this topic!

The trip into school took me two hours and 20 minutes today.  It was a long slow haul.  But it wasn’t too stressful as everyone was going the same slow 10 to 15 miles an hour.  I guess that’s the key.  When everyone is going the same speed there is so little stress.  Now if we could apply that to life.  Of course that would infer that there also would be so little excitement!

As I travel around Ann Arbor, on the bus, walking across campus, or driving through crowded streets, I am amazed at the high percentage of people that are walking, riding their bikes, studying in libraries, sitting in restaurants or on the bus, all with headsets on. If they aren’t listening to an IPOD they are talking on their phones. Is this an Ann Arbor thing? Or are all people everywhere traveling, reading, sitting or eating while listening to someone or something in their ear?
Does no one just listen to their own thoughts anymore? Have we lost the ability to be silent? Have we no thoughts of our own to ponder? Do we always have to be connected to someone or something else? Are we afraid to be alone with ourselves?

I rarely have a reason to turn my cell phone on. Certainly not for the kinds of casual conversations I hear all around me on the streets. I don’t have any desire to listen to someone or something else during my commutes to and from classes. There is so much to consider just being on campus, I don’t need more information filtering into my already overloaded brain. That sounds like something from a 503 lecture I recently heard. There’s probably a study on this going on right now.

Regardless, I think people that can’t leave home without having something in their ear are missing an awful lot of interesting things. Some of which are other people just like them.

After Mom died suddenly in July of 2004, while we were all back home arranging the funeral, I noticed that the windchime that hangs in her livingroom would occasionally chime a single, soft, gentle tone. It seemed to me that these tones would frequently correspond to times when I felt the most sad, or was the furthest into a deep melancholy memory. It was as if she was telling me gently that she was right there.

After Dad died in December of that year, at the hands of a tired semi truck driver, I would often look up at the night sky at the Big Dipper. Dad and I had talked about that constellation when I was a kid, how it would appear to angle in the sky differently depending on where in the world you were. Later, when I was an adult, he was in Costa Rica, and he told me after that trip how the Big Dipper looked so different from down there. I wonder now if it looks different from heaven.

Tonight I spent considerable time on the phone with our attorney talking about things that different people in our family are working on, trying to make a difference in the trucking industry; to help prevent more of these tragedies. After the call I took the dog out for her final evening walk in the snow. As she went about her business I glanced up sadly, with tears in my eyes. There was the Big Dipper. As I gazed at it and thought about Dad, somewhere from across the street on a darkened porch, a wind chime called out, a single, gentle tone. “I am right here.”

The ice is still with us, but thankfully we didn’t lose power like so many around us did.  So I can just enjoy how pretty it is and not have to live with consequences.

The night before last I was riding the bus back to the car.  It was 5 p.m. and the sun was just going down.  The air had started to get that pink cast to it, and I wondered how the icy trees would look in the pink air.  Ann Arbor sits up on a ridge, and as the bus decended down past the University Hospital and over the Huron River I glanced back.  There was a row of trees at the top of the ridge, between me and the setting sun.  They were glowing bright fushia and peach and orange.  It looked as though they were covered in milions of tiny pink and peach lights.  I only got a glimpse, but it was something I’ll never forget.