Flashes of Panic

I spent a chunk of Friday and some more of the weekend chewing away at a problem set due tomorrow. I wanted it done before I went to tonight’s concert, and it is done now.

It’s amazing, now that I think about it, how hard I have to work to feel OK about taking a block of time “off” like that. It’s just an evening, but tonight I have class until 45 minutes before the concert starts; in that 45 minutes, I need to meet A., get down to Davis Square, and get something to eat (not necessarily in that order.) And there would be plenty of ways to eat up a few more minutes of even that time—for example, there’s a professor with office hours then who I really ought to be seeing about the next problem set due. I made sure I could go to the show, but I haven’t answered the problem of whether there are other things I ought to be doing.

So instead of taking a day off from work to relax and shake off some stress, I get to take a few hours off from being a student. I guess I’ve just been surprised by the degree to which that is a 24/7 job.