Six-and-a-half weeks

I'm sitting here with the Spring term course schedule already.

This is week 6 of the Winter term, half over, midterms behind me, I shoulder the bookbag up and down the hills filled with library books loaned to me from all over Oregon about the ancient Hittite Empire, the Research Paper to write, then only the Final Exams ahead.
Afterwards, the 10 days off before Spring term starts on March 31st.

What do I need to do to retrieve my photographic memory of the first lap of my schooling? Only needed to read something twice, and I not only could remember it for exams, but could visualize it on the page. Before anyone calls out the AGE card, I think that the working world had it's own level of memorization requirements, as in unpacking 150 cases of books and remembering that in the flurry of sorting them into storage bins whether the third Spiderwick book came in and whether it was in paperback or hardcover. And how far back in the bin you stacked it.
So my memory skills were merely redirected to assist me as a customer serving boss instead of a student (or singer of rock lyrics).

Six weeks in, and my stair-taking is less embarrassing, I know which of the busses running through the fare-free zone stops have a drop-off stop at PSU (Portland, she rains) and which cross-over bridges between buildings are enclosed so I don't have to passively smoke a cigarette or two on my way to Neuberger Hall. If only there was one to the library...

I love that library. It has that mid-century smell that I remember from before the digital age and it comforts me when browsing through the stacks and finding an irresistible book on 1930's Mandarin Chinese poetry in translation, or repaired bindings on 100 year old books so they can still be read. Libraries are treasuries, attracting serious students, snoozers, and today a table of fully chadored young women playing with their cell phones and giggling when a young man sat down at their table. BTW, the Hittite books are fascinating, how am I going to narrow down which works of art to compare for the paper? I love these kind of dilemmas.

But I need a new laptop, clearly the 2003 Sony is so slow and noisy and almost 9lbs, it's not going to be hanging off my shoulder on the bus and throwing out the other side of my lower back. There have been days when I've come into a lecture hall and the whole back half of the room is wall-to-wall upright laptops, and the pitter-patter of Apple keystrokes has become just as integral to the lecture as the whir of the slide projector over my head. Free wi-fi access is everywhere on campus, so I could work on my online research at the table by the window with my hot organic coffee gripped in my hand, then speed off to my next class. I get a student discount if I get one through the online Apple Education store, or I can check Best Buy, but being able to carry around my files and add to them while on campus will really come in handy. As Steven would say,"Well, some bitches better get a job!" I'd rather get a grant, and shake some Apples loose from the money tree. Some bitches get wicked crafty...

My neighbor John was snickering at me today, he's a retired teacher, that I'm just so happy to be doing what I'm doing, loaded down with books late in the afternoon, coming home from the bus. Sometimes I feel seven years old again, can't wait to break open the books after class and mentally run like hell. There is nothing else in the world I'd rather be doing.