Fast

This is clearly the fastest spring quarter in history. It feels like I've skipped a whole chunk of time. I remember things from the middle of the quarter, teaching Jane Austen for instance, but I don't feel like I was there. Teaching was great (only three more classes!), so maybe it was the time-flying-because-having-fun thing. But I've also been oppressed by spring and the approach of summer. Since my father got sick last June and died last August, I feel like summer is when bad things happen, and spring is the ramp-up to disaster--when one stupidly looks forward to vacation and long, warm days, only to get slugged in the stomach and dragged over hot coals and then thrown off a cliff. In short, I'm having mixed feelings. Because the thrill of summer is still there. When I was a kid I used to cross off the days left till school was out--I'd start with 181 on my dry-erase board and X them out, until, as I approached 1 day, the numbers got bigger and bigger and exclamation marks started appearing.