Conditions on the Ground
This morning, I woke up to about three inches of snow on my car. On a normal Tuesday, this would not have been a problem as class starts in the afternoon. By the afternoon, the temperature rises, the snow melts, and the plows have had a chance to go by the house. However, I had an 10:00 a.m. appointment that, clearly, I was not going to make. I gave it the "old college try," by which I mean I attempted to drive on the snow anyway. A few harrowing and unplanned slides in to the opposite lane convinced me that while I was still only a few hundred feet away from the house I should turn back. Utter terror behind the wheel can give one a clarity of mind and decisiveness like nothing else. The appointment that I missed, a meeting with the college career counselor, wasn't anything that was at the top of my list of things to do this day anyway. However, lately, (as if you couldn't tell from 90% of the other posts on this blog) I have been feeling some tension between my current career path as a graphic designer and my previous career path as a college writing/literature instructor. Even though I am not spending as much time reading Derrida, Lacan, or Barthes as I used to, I find that I still enjoy metaphor and analyzing creative works. (A recent trip to a major art gallery, and the corresponding paper that I had to write about it, helped me see that I am still talented in that regard. Instead of reporting on the mere anatomy of an artwork, doing tasks like identifying its overall color scheme or the describing the various kinds of colors that it used, I spent most of the time analyzing the theme and meaning of the work as a whole.) Anyway, I scheduled this appointment because I had got some advice that indicated seeing a career counselor would help me clarify these questions in some new way I can't yet foresee. I'll have to reschedule tomorrow or Thursday.
Once back inside the house, I settled in to wait things out. I spent most of the morning watching the snow pile up on the outside deck while painting on a school project. The lights went on and off about five times, which wasn't a problem as I was painting by the dining room window. It gave enough natural light to work by. Eventually though, enough snow had melted to where I was able to leave the house and get to school; and, fortunately, after a brief lunch break, I was able to make it to my class on time.
We spent the entirety of today's class learning how to retouch photos. It took quite some time to get through everything the instructor wanted to present. By the end of class, he had assigned a project in which you take an old, black and white photograph that had been ripped into pieces and clumsily glued back together and remove any evidence of rips or similar types of damage. I decided that it would be in my best interest to stay after class and do it right then, which I am glad to say, I finished. There was a lot more that I could catch up at school, but it was late, and I was hungry, so I left. I got home at about 7:00 p.m., which considering how I had worked all day, I felt was fairly long.
From everything I have heard, there is going to be even more snow tomorrow morning. And I've got a morning class then as well, so unlike today, I won't be able to wait around until conditions are more favorable. I am going to hope that it doesn't snow as much as they're saying, force myself into a determined sort of denial. It may only be foolish hope, but it is getting close to the end of the term, and I still have some work I need to catch up on. Less snow clogging up the roads mean more time spent buried in the computer lab working on homework. In any event, tomorrow brings what tomorrow will bring regardless of my wants and needs, so there's not too much use worrying about it. And right now, it's time for bed again.
27 February 2007
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