I had high hopes for today. I had no grading to do or lecture to prepare. I could take off my teaching hat and devote the day to a lot of pressing personal business, especially job applications. But I was nearly immobile for much of the day. Why? It’s not like I haven’t taught long evening classes before, I thought. But then I did the math. This is the first semester I have taught a daytime class and a long evening class. That in itself might be unremarkable, but then there’s the commute too. So maybe I should not feel guilty about Thursdays and just accept that at the moment it is my weekend. After all, I spent last weekend grading, and that will happen next weekend too. And I am teaching English as a Foreign Language on Saturdays to a group of au pairs at a school in my neighborhood called LADO.

But back to that math. Yesterday I got up at 7:00 and left the house a little after 9:00. The commute by bus and train and bus is 90 minutes on a good day, though usually a little longer. I lectured from 11:30 to 12:20. I advised students on an upcoming project for the next hour. I had lunch and caught up on the news via the web. Then I updated Blackboard, the online learning system that George Mason University uses. I returned to the office at 5:00, an hour earlier than usual, because I figured I’d have more visitors than usual, which I did, right down to 7:10. At that point I had to quit advising students and deliver a lecture beginning at 7:20. I managed to end that early, that is, at 9:50, and then I answered student questions until 10:15. I caught a bus at 10:30. Waited 15 minutes for a train. Got into DC about 11:30 and waited for a bus. I got home about midnight. That’s 15 hours on the move. And it really is on the move, because adjunct professors at Mason only have access to office space for office hours. There is not enough room to give us a work space too.

So maybe it’s okay to be exhausted on Thursday, which really is my weekend this semester. One good thing: I’ve been able to ride the train during non-peak hours. Another: I’ve started doing yoga again, and I intend to keep that up, regardless of whatever crazy work schedule I might have in future.