Springing ahead.

Tonight I've realized that my Mac knows some things about how Daylight Saving Time and British Summer Time differ--chiefly, that we did not spring forward here at the same time you (my U.S.ian readers) did there. Thus it is that I fully expect to arise tomorrow morning and find that my trusty computer has fast-forwarded itself into BST automatically. I set my other clocks forward at 7:20 p.m., made it 8:20 p.m. with nary a regret. This year might be the first in ages when I've not been disappointed to "lose" an hour overnight. I'm too excited about getting that extra hour of daylight.

Look, seriously, that's pretty much the only thing I've got tonight. I feel a little bit sheepish about this fact: if I have to be somewhere in the outside world first thing in the morning (which today meant 10 a.m.), it throws off my whole day. When I'm teaching, that's more or less okay, given that teaching and advising involve a lot of activity and enforced deadlines (like, oh, the beginning of a class period). Much of what I do when I'm actively teaching feels like managing a whole room full of distractions, my own and others', and helping craft them into an unexpected richness. When it's a wide open Saturday that I'm managing and crafting, though, getting thrown off involves a higher degree of aimlessness.

People seem to be graduating all the time here in Cambridge; today was the third graduation day that's taken place since I arrived, because, it would seem, there's at least one ceremony per term. And so the city centre and market square were full of graduates in their gowns and furred hoods and white ties, out eating meals or just strolling about finely. I took three walks to town--two to attend readings and one to buy a book I'd seen but passed up earlier. The book was gone when I got there. Never pass up a book if you think you're supposed to have it. (Though it must be said: I've gotten myself into some right messes with that aphorism.)

I leave this day thinking: right: let's spring forward, ready or not.