The Divided Self

It's a windy night in Honolulu, a little before 8:00, and I'm trying to guesstimate how much energy I have left before I fall into bed, something I could do right now happily enough. One part of me wants to stay up long enough to write something for Throughlines, especially since I've got a little streak going, ten days and counting, and I don't want to fall off the wagon. Another part of me wants to lay out the paints and hook up some music and get into the alternate zone that painting induces, what Gerhard Richter was talking about when he came up with the line I quoted the other day: "Painting has nothing to do with thinking, because in painting thinking is painting." Part of me wants to go over to Chess Cube and play a couple of games, but that feels dangerous right now because I'm sleepy enough that I'm almost certain to blunder away a game or two, like I did last night. And part of me would just like to go down to the mall or the beach and wander around and actually experience what it means to be out in the world on a windy spring evening on a tropical island.

I had a lot of good conversations at work today, with colleagues, with a prospective teacher, with a group of teachers planning for a curriculum re-assessment. We're nearing the end of our preparations for the visiting team which will arrive on Sunday to assess our status as a school and decide whether we deserve to be accredited, and if so, for how long. We've been two years preparing for the visit, and I've been in charge of the preparations. I'm feeling good about it, and am looking forward to meeting the team and doing what I can to be of help to them while they are here. Of course, I'm going to feel even better on Wednesday evening, after the visit is over and I can turn my attention to many other things that have been piling up on my desk while I've been checking and filing the exhibits and tracking down materials and lining up meetings. I've gotten a lot of help from my colleagues and I think we're as ready as we're ever going to be.

So that's it for tonight. Not much hear to nourish the brain or the heart, gentle reader. My apologies. Maybe tomorrow I'll write about math. I've been conducting a little study, and it's probably time to figure out what I've learned and what I need to look at next.