I am listening to Bon Iver and thinking about Illinois in December, particularly I-94 out of the suburbs when it is so, so cold. I am really happy to be going home: although happy is the wrong way to describe it. It is right for me to go home. I realised this a couple of weeks ago out-of-the-blue. That money concerns aside, I should be home when I can be. And we should be in Japan when we can be. To pretend otherwise is silly, I think.
So going home will be nice, I'm sure. On the docket will be the Green Mill with Yoko, finally, seeing old friends, and hopefully catching a show by my reunited old band somewhere in there. I have to work some of the time as per usual, but it will be really nice to be able to sit on the parent's sofa and be home.
I have spent most of today marking an essay and working on giving comments to one of my tutees. I have been a PhD student for like two weeks and have gotten so little done in relation to that. I really need to get reading, but it's like I have a block: I sit down and there are so many other things to distract me.
Although listening to Bon Iver also reminds me of this time last year, with all the concerns that I had about whether or not we were going to be able to afford our life here. Whether or not I had made the right choice. What my future was. All these things are less of concerns now and it seems like I will be gainfully employed when I finish, so I feel like I should really live it up at this stage, before the kids start school and I start working in a real way. For now, we are only fettered by what we perceive as our limits, but really, there are no limits.
And for as much as I feel bogged down by my part-time work at this point, the truth is, the fact that I am getting paid to mark essays and tutor students and teach is pretty incredible thing... There's nothing else I would want to be doing.