Friday is my favorite day of the week. This is nothing special, I suppose. It's a popular day for a lot of people. For me though, more than being the end of the work week, it represents the one day of the week when I can take a little mental break from school. I have class in the evening on Wednesday and Thursday so Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday during the day are spent reading, underlining, fretting, and trying to mentally process what I'm taking in. (Thursday daytime is similarly consumed.)
Saturdays should be study days but really they're not. They are for watching Legion of Super Heroes and The Batman with Maryn and Avery, shopping with Suzanne, driving around to new places, and occasionally eating out for lunch. Saturday evenings are for movies, baths, and watching whatever they decide to plunk down in the middle of the wasteland that is weekend TV. However, even though I don't usually do much school work, I feel the weight of "should" throughout the day.
Sundays used to prime study time for me. Sundays after church and dinner I would disappear to my study bunker and read until long after everyone else was asleep. It was a regular thing. When I started the program at Wayne State, however, I decided to put a stop to that. I decided that, if at all possible, I simply wouldn't think about, work on, or stress out about school on Sundays. Part of it was a desire to set a day aside for God and part of it was a desire simply to have one day when I gave myself permission to not worry. If it's a foregone conclusion that I won't work on Sundays, then I don't need to worry about it. It's a done deal and I can expend my energies on other things. I painted myself into a corner a couple of times last semester but, other than that, I've held to my decision and it's worked out really well.
Anyway, Friday mornings I spend responding to overdue e-mail from family and friends, updating my blog, and taking it easy with my students. In class, I like to use Fridays to read something fun and light hearted or to take the students walking somewhere in the neighborhood to write. Fridays are decompression days.
Consequently, I'm feeling pretty free and easy at the moment. I have a room full of prospective Young Detroit Builders taking their entrance exam. All the current students are upstairs in math class and the building (at least my floor) is quiet.
A little randomness:
pharmakon -- a Greek word that is obviously the root for pharmacy. In Greek, however, it can mean both medicine and poison. I think it's a great word because there are many things that can be described in that kind of dualistic way. There's plenty in the world that's healthy, healing, and restorative that can also be destructive and dangerous if used too much, not enough, improperly, etc. We are surrounded by pharmakons and our decisions help make them into either medicine or poison.
Below is a picture of Antoine Boykins, one of YDB's star students, taking part in a biochemistry experiment on Eastern Michigan University campus. We take a group there every other week as part of a bridge program that's meant to familiarize them with the college experience. It's been really successful so far. The only complaint has been that the schedule doesn't allow for enough "socializin' with the females."
The funny thing was, when they got to this class and got put into groups with a variety of pretty, smart college girls, my boys seized up tighter than a banker's smile. They were terrified. It was hilarious.
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