Just in case you think an older student has an easier time focusing on schoolwork, here’s what today looked like.
I had the whole day mapped out and on the whiteboard: an early morning walk, and household tasks that included doing the laundry, getting groceries and gas, retrieving the dog from the dog hotel, and scheduling a telephone line repair. As for classwork, I had a discussion post about one film to write, a chapter to study, an online test to take, and a second film to watch.
Plus, I had to put away a bunch of stuff we’d brought back from my mother’s house, which we’re in the process of clearing out – I’d spent the last two days in LA going through stuff. Although I’d turned in one class assignment early, I’d also hoped to study the chapter in the evening, but it was not to be; we cleared until it was time to eat, cleared some more, fell into bed, then got up the next morning and hit it hard again. That’s why the dog was in a dog hotel, and why I needed gas and groceries. And why I still needed to study the chapter.
I knocked out the household work, scheduled the phone repair for tomorrow morning, and even ran the vacuum cleaner around after putting the laundry away. I finally turned my attention to school work around noon, a bit tight but feeling optimistic. Suddenly the telephone repairman and his assistant showed up! This afternoon! Well, we need a working home phone, so I wasn’t about to send them away.
But, they needed to reach the phone jack in my office, which is behind a massive credenza. My office basically had to shift two feet to the left, and boxes and boxes of stuff emerged, the rubble of a 30-year career. After having spent two days clearing one house, it occurred to me to throw it all away unopened, but I just shoved it to one side for sifting.
Meanwhile, my computer called, my project open on the screen, but I couldn’t physically reach it. I also couldn’t log in on a separate device, because I was already logged in on one device. Rrgg.
Four hours later, I have a working phone in my office again. The home phones are up and running again. And my office is a disaster area, with dusty boxes piled everywhere.
What did I accomplish today out of the long list of things I had to get done? I took a 4-mile walk this morning, got groceries, gas, and picked up the dog. I did the laundry and got the phones repaired. I chose a scene to write about and broke it down into shots on a scrap of paper – thank goodness for paper and pencil, or I’d have gotten even less accomplished today. Aaand that’s it.
I’m about to take the dog for a walk. Tomorrow is another day. I’ve already decided that I’m not going to try to sort my office until classwork is finished; I’m taking my laptop and going somewhere clean and orderly and maybe with some tofu curry rice for lunch. Mmm, tofu curry rice.
