I’m on the office floor, near 10:30PM, right ear ringing. Yes, you read that correctly, my right ear is ringing. Maybe I have that Pete Townsend condition. I don’t know. About a month ago I tried to clean the wax from my ear and failed miserably. Now I don’t feel as if wax is keeping me from hearing, but I do feel like I can’t hear from my right ear. I find myself saying “what?” over and over again. I don’t want to go to the doctor, however, because I’ve been at the doctor way too much lately, and I feel like a spaz returning to his office so often. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.
Today was a decent day. I drove into work pretty early this morning (traffic on 43 again). I don’t trust many of my colleagues right now. I honestly feel like most of them are in this profession to create as safe and comfortable life for themselves as possible, and even the slightest change to their comfy lives is a threat. A colleague and I talked for a long time this morning. He and I agreed that the personal cost of leadership can outweigh the benefits of doing a good job. For example, I know that shared leadership is good leadership. I also know that shared leadership is not as effective when you don’t trust the people around you. And I don’t trust the people around me. I want to make a real difference with the undergrads next year.
Really, though, right now, I’d really like to think about work less. I don’t know how to do that. I guess I have to practice. Oh, I’ve ran about three miles, maybe a little less, both last night and tonight after the kids fell asleep. Now, I normally wouldn’t think of running at night. I’m more of a morning person. However, I was wired last night, and I didn’t want to sit around all wired, I wanted to clear my head, so on an impulse I threw on my mp3 player and hit the streets. I’m glad I made the decision to run. Last night the fog was rolling in off the lake, I could barely see ahead of me, and I felt like I was in a forest heading into the unknown. I liked the feeling. Good night.