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Bullet point 5 in my previous enumeration of possible reasons for "spacing out" more frequently these days [1] should be just as applicable to the Christmas and New Years break as it was to the summer vacation when that post was written. But the daily routine of this year's inter-semester break can hardly be described as monotonous. In fact it's been punctuated by a flurry of activity leading up to my starting tomorrow a job at a new school (the first offer of full-time employment after a decade of applying and interviewing).
So what could possibly explain the need to "start from a random measure" and reorient myself after one of these episodes of spacing out? The most plausible reason is sleep deprivation. All the mental stimulation of mapping out my first few meetings with 85 students (in five different classes) has made it impossible to fall asleep at the usual time, or to stay asleep longer than five hours. Three nights in a row with poor-quality sleep is a recipe for arriving at the campus tomorrow in a much weakened state, as Julie Andrews reminds us in The Sound of Music:
Strength doesn't lie in numbers; strength doesn't lie in wealth. Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumbers.
(from the song "I Have Confidence")
It was during a night of sleep that Gregor Samsa, protagonist of Kafka's novel Metamorphosis, transformed into a species of vermin and awoke to find himself in control of very different appendages than the hands and fingers he remembered. His experience getting acquainted with an altered sense of proprioception --- learning to use pincers or antennae instead of fingers and toes --- can serve as an example for my own growth as a teacher. The classroom awareness needed by a high school teacher is very different from the classroom awareness needed by a community college instructor. So in addition to the heightened stimulation from envisioning the first meetings with new students, there might also be a fear of metamorphosis underlying the subliminal message "stay awake" that has governed my brain's activity these past few nights.
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