So I’m sure this will come as a total shock but I woke up this morning sick.  Why am I not surprised?  Because this is the last week of working two jobs and juggling (not very well I admit) my writing commitments.  I’ve averaged 70 hours of work a week and have had only one weekend off since mid-October.  For the last two months my mantra has been “just get through the middle of December” and it looks like I’ve made it.  Barely.

But for 2010 I’m trying, as best I can, to avoid what I’ll call the brick-wall phenomenon.  That’s where I go at a dead-sprint, for months at a time, until I smack face-first into that metaphorical brick wall.  I’ve been doing it for years.  In high school it ended up with me coming down with a wicked case of mono.  In graduate school I ended up hospitalized with walking pneumonia.  And well you all remember my bout with swine flu.  No more.

I took the first step by stepping down from one of my teaching jobs.  I’m pretty torn up about it actually.  Over the last year I logged A LOT of hours in the classroom, and it reminded me that there’s a lot I can do other than practice law.  I may have taken the leap away from practice but it was teaching that really taught me to swim.

But it became clear that there’s no way I can keep up my responsibilities in the Health Law Institute and continue to teach outside the law school and write.  And since writing and wonking is how I truly want to spend my days there really wasn’t a choice.  But tonight, I’m sad.  My students were a nutty mix of immigrants, veterans, and second-chancers.  A significant majority still believe that Iraq had a role in 9/11, think abortion should be outlawed, and are firmly conivinced the country is shades away from socialist nihilism.  I wasn’t there to teach.  I was there to preach.

Well, kind of.  I didn’t try to outwardly shut down ill-informed opinion as much as I demanded they provide me a reliable source for many other supporting facts.  I could do that by assigning research papers rather than multiple choice exams, and I did.  Which meant hours more of grading, cite checking, and editing.  So much editing.  And I did it by asking questions.  Lots of questions.  And by bringing my own information to class.  So yeah.  A lot of work to do at college what should have been going on in high school…..but that’s another post. I promise.  Community college has provided me with some stories that just need to get shared.  And they will.  It’s part of creating closure with that part of my life, right?

For now though my goal is to be healthy for the holidays.  My little boy turns 5 in exactly two weeks and I intend for both Christmas and his birthday to rule and in order for that to happen I’ve got to slow down.  Starting now. During this last sprint once again I hit the wall.  Just not as hard as usual.  Which is precisely why now I’m paying attention.