Too Much

I've got too much of a good thing right now. A lot of good things, truth be told. In a previous entry, I wrote about the fact that I'm co-leading a study abroad trip this summer. Every time I've done this, I've had this worry: will we have enough applicants to travel? We have a cap of 24 students, and the college has some rules about the smallest number of students we can take. In 2005, they let me travel with only six, but that was a real exception to the rules; in 2007, we took 18 students. At that time, that was the second biggest group to travel in the program's history. We just closed our call for applications, and this year, we have 30! I'm thrilled, of course, but also concerned about the idea of having to reject six of them. Luckily, we have a good, experienced team to make these decisions. Still, I hate to break hearts over this, and missing out on a first trip to Europe could be heartbreaking.

In other "too much" news, I'm absolutely overloaded with work I enjoy. Crazy, huh? Somehow, I've managed to get myself involved with a heap of college and university service that I actually like (service on committees is a job requirement, and often, I think, we feel like committee work sucks the life out of us). I don't know how it happened, but I really like the people I'm serving with, and I feel like the service is important. There's just too much of it. Every committee I'm on right now is doing something that requires me to read dossiers full of documents, folders full of applications, big piles of CVs, etc. This is definitely too much of a good thing.

Too muchness has touched my personal life this month, too. I'm doing physical therapy three times a week, and I love that it's making me feel better (big news on that front: I can walk without listing to the left now. Small progress, but it makes a real difference in my hip and knee pain). On the new thing front, I started pool PT once a week. I go to the pool at the Y near school, where the PT clinic rents a lane, and my therapist has me do lots of pool walking and squatting and deep water scissoring. I love it, except that it's at noon on Wednesday. It honestly feels decadent to leave work for two hours to play in the pool, even if the playing involves a doctor's orders.

I'm sure you've seen through all of my silver lining talk here to the real issue. I'm busy as can be, and that is not a new thing for me or anyone else I know, for that matter. In spite of it all, I'm making time for fun and some relaxation, so it's all going to be fine. Besides, it's way better to have too much of a good thing than a whole lot of nothing.

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