I wanted to post more Christmasy stuff, more fun stuff, this month, but my life has been going at that full-tilt-boogie that drives me crazy and kind of shuts down my creativity.

Today I gave two exams (and graded same), sat through a far-too-long meeting to talk with the references of a person we are thinking of hiring, coped with a couple of difficult (I would even say snotty) people, and posted my grades. And tonight it is youth group.

Tomorrow I have budgeted the entire day to break down my allelopathy experiment, which will include fishing all of the roots out of the soil in which they were growing. I would like to do it outside (because it involves soil and water) but I fear freezing my fingers off if I do that.

I just want to BE. I just want to sit at home and look at my little Christmas tree and put carols on the stereo and drink tea and not think about my work for a little while. (I dreamed about grading and about breaking down the experiment last night. I tend to dream about "real life" things when I'm stressed about them and am thinking too much about them.)

Maybe I can use the busy-time tomorrow of breaking down the experiment (where I have to be working but my mind isn't totally occupied) to come up with some kind of more contemplative post. Because I feel lately like my life - and especially my posting on this blog - have just been one big BLAH. Like I don't have enough time to think and consider so I'm just reacting - as if my nervous system has slipped down a few evolutionary notches so I'm contracting or shooting out cnidocytes like a jellyfish instead of using higher-order processes to figure things out like a real mammal does.