Lost in Time

I have lost all track of time.

I spent most of last week about a day or two off, one way or another. This week I was so convinced that Tuesday was actually Thursday that I actually logged in to my remote class to post revised due dates for an assignment because I was sure I had gotten them wrong on the original announcement for it.

Turns out it was Tuesday all along.

I’m not used to losing track of time. I’m a historian, after all. Keeping track of time is one of the requirements of the job (though not keeping track of dates, really – that’s why there are reference books). I’m used to being able to know at the bare minimum what day it is, and usually I can tell you the time to within ten minutes without checking. But the last two weeks have been one unbroken blur.

It started last Monday when my remote class was taking an exam. I don’t log in for those – there’s precious little point to me staring at them for 50 minutes while they write since I can’t really see them that well anyway (on my screen an entire class is shown in a space about two inches by three, and I’ve got five separate classrooms to keep track of). Besides, there are facilitators on site who handle that. It’s a good system. But that meant I didn’t have an actual class with them until Wednesday which threw my whole week off, and then the next.

Oliver came home for spring break last Wednesday as well, which has been lovely. He and Dustin got here late that evening and we’ve been hanging around as much as possible. We don’t do a whole lot – there’s a lot of companionable silence, along with a few hockey games and one round of Carcassonne so far – but that’s kind of the point for spring break. It’s been a nice change of routine, which is a grand thing but also doesn’t help with keeping track of time.

Don’t even get me started on the news.

I suppose at some point I will reorient myself and know without checking what day it is again. I’m hoping this happens soon, since there are a few things I want to get done and the possibility that I might try to do them on a completely different day from the one where they are supposed to get done is a bit sad. But so it goes.

Time is an abstraction in the best of circumstances, but sometimes it is more abstract than others.