Though I only had a few days for required work this week, I kept a full slate of auto-responses to better mark the transition from 2014 to 2015. We begin at that beginning:
Monday, December 29: Resolving not to be Too Quick to Resolve
It's the last Monday of 2014.
Today is a good day to think about your new year's resolution, if you're so inclined.
If you're at work, things are likely more quiet than usual, most holiday parties past, many co-workers cramming in unused vacation and sick days before the new year starts.
If you're not at work, today is a pivot day of sorts on the break you are taking. Visiting relatives might be making their way home today, or you might be traveling back to where you're from, hopefully at a laconic pace that doesn't involve airports. Or maybe you're just resting quietly for a bit, doing some minor work while it's quiet, which is why you're getting this.
In either location -- at work or away from work -- today is a good day to think about next year.
My advice, don't think too much about it. Don't rush rashly to resolve. Let the year arrive, give it time to simmer, and make your adaptations quietly, over time. Ease into things. Make any resolutions or long term plans in February, after you get all tax paper work, final holiday bills, sense of what the issues are at work, at home, in the country as a whole.
Then make some plans, set a course, and find a way to stay sane that doesn't demand drastic or dramatic change or surgery...
Tuesday, December 30: Actual Out
Today finds me genuinely out of the office, off line for much of the day.
Not that it matters to you too much because if you're writing me, there's nothing urgent at hand. I've delivered unto deadline what is deadline's, and now is the time for low level projects - the last expense report for the year, some tidying up of files, deleting of things past for which remembrance, let alone archiving, would be wasted, and other squaring-aways of the past year in preparation for the next.
I am looking forward to 2015, and the chance, from a work point of view, for new adventures in pedagogy and online learning.
Not that it matters to you too much because if you're writing me, there's nothing urgent at hand. I've delivered unto deadline what is deadline's, and now is the time for low level projects - the last expense report for the year, some tidying up of files, deleting of things past for which remembrance, let alone archiving, would be wasted, and other squaring-aways of the past year in preparation for the next.
I am looking forward to 2015, and the chance, from a work point of view, for new adventures in pedagogy and online learning.
Wednesday, December 31: No TV Tonight
It's New Year's Eve, or as we used to say when I tended bar and waited tables for a living, amateur night. If you're going out tonight, have fun. If you're not going out, you'll have more fun.
If you're staying in, whatever you do, do not turn on the television and watch the inexorable coverage of first nights, ball drop, fireworks, and the inane commentary of B-list singers, and local anchors trying to sound chipper between their shivers. There's nothing more desultory and cheerless than new year's eve coverage on television.
It's much more sensible to to take a good hardcover book and hit yourself about the head than it is to watch television coverage of the count down to the new year. At least when people asked you how you spent your new year's eve you can sound constructive about it -- I curled up with a good book.
So look, whatever you do tonight - be it stay home alone, stay home with family and friends, go out alone, or go out with family and friends - do it with the television off. Enjoy or despair the moment, wherever you are and whatever your mood, live and direct, not through a screen.
Thursday, January 1: Flower Power Redux
This will be redundant in its way, but here goes: Hippy Nude Year!Friday, January 2: A Year of Travel Kharma in One Day?
Have I used all my travel kharma for 2015 today?
I needed to get to Hartford from Canton, Ma. My plan was to rent a car from Logan because I fly out early Sunday morning and the car rental from Friday to Sunday is cheaper than -- get this -- a cab to the airport from my house Sunday am.
But, at the last minute, I had an appointment come up that meant I couldn't leave as early as planned for the airport. I though for sure I'd be late to the meeting in Hartford.
But . . .
I got t the train at Canton Junction just in time to catch the, coming onto the platform and stepping aboard as the last passenger just as it was about to pull away.
At South Station, I transferred to the Silver Line, stepping aboard just as the bus was to pull away for it's run to Logan.
At Logan, I transferred from the Silver Line to the car rental shuttle, stepping aboard just as the door closed.
At the rental car center, I hit no line, FastBreak was fast, no line, the envelope waiting, the car there, with no line at the exit booth.
I hit no traffic delays on the Pike.
So instead of being a half hour to forty minutes late, I was ten minutes early, a minor miracle.
I hope I don't have to pay the kharma bank back on Sunday after I land at LAX and begin the drive to Huntington Beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment