The fall semester is about to begin at the university where I work, so a holiday weekend couldn’t come at a better time. Is everyone ready for classes to start? Well, we will be ready by Tuesday. Or maybe Wednesday. Surely by Thursday we’ll be fully prepared. But by Friday we’ll be ready for another weekend in which we can finally get all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, literally as well as figuratively.
For several years I’ve been using a roller coaster metaphor to describe the yearly cycle of my work as I learned all the aspects of my job. This year, the metaphor was resonating with everyone I saw last week in the office, at the Chancellor’s talk, at the College retreat, and at the department retreat. No one is quite ready for the ride at the moment, but when those cars glide up and the safety bars rise up we’ll step in, fasten our safety harnesses, and do our best.
Planning proceeds apace on the book project, although every time I discover something new about my subject I find myself rethinking the whole plan. The project is like a jigsaw puzzle that changes its picture each time you find more pieces. The subject was rather a complicated puzzle all in himself, so it makes a certain amount of sense to see things that way.
For part of the research I’m doing on this fellow, I’m currently looking at multiple copies of the same book that he wrote. Trying to obtain these copies has been a challenge, as the automated inter-library loan systems can’t conceive of anyone actually wanting multiple copies of the exact same book. Because a copy is selected at random from all the books within the UW System to fulfill my loan request, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t be given the same copy over and over. And the system automatically blocks requests when I have “recently made a similar request.” (Ask me how I know.)
I’m blessed, however, to be working with a librarian who agrees with her label of “chaotic good.” She recently reached out to a couple of people — within the inter-library loan system, I presume, but I didn’t ask any intrusive questions — and then last Thursday I received emails stating that the materials I requested were ready for pickup. Two books I haven’t actually requested. Curious. By the time I made it to the university library on Friday afternoon there were three books waiting for me. (A fourth, which I had purchased via Amazon, had arrived that day in the mail.) The poor woman working the circulation desk was so puzzled. “It’s just the same book, over and over….”
That gave me about ten pounds of math history to lug home, but this weekend I have evaluated all of the volumes and updated my records. There are eight more copies of the second edition of this book in the UW System, and now I wonder how many of them will be waiting for me at the library when I go back to work on Tuesday morning. At least I’ll have something to read while I’m in line for my next trip on the roller coaster.
Besides getting ready for work and the resumption of graduate school classes — fortunately, only one at a time — it feels as if I haven’t done anything but rethink the book project. Maybe that’s just what happens when you take on a big project like this one. The more you learn, the more questions you ask, the more you realize that you need to learn, and so on. It will not surprise anyone who knows me that I have (a) started to set up a binder with dozens of index tabs and (b) commandeered a 32 by 48 inch bulletin board to organize sections of the project.
I also managed to strain my back and shoulder the previous weekend when I set up a new bookcase, but after some rest and some more thoughtful use of my arm it’s feeling a lot better. I’m still wary of straining it again, but I’m physically back to about 95 percent where the arm is concerned.
Knitwise, I finally took the wrist warmer off the needles, pulled all the stitches out, and wound the yarn up again. Have I cast on again? Have I re-knitted the ribbing? Have I re-written the cabling instructions? No, no, no…
Chocolate Sheep 