Before beginning a new semester of teaching a wave of helplessness washes over me as I look down the prospect of once again leading a group of students through an established set of course outcomes. It takes a certain amount of work and effort to get them all clued into a routine and marching to the same beat. And even after having done so, it's always true that I have noncompliants, and am never without a semester where someone hasn't neatly followed the order that I prescribe.

After the same rigamarole again and again, I realize that there's not much of anything new that I haven't seen before. A decade of teaching earns you this perspective.

There's a certain amount of futility that accompanies endless cycles of the same thing. Sometimes I'm running that hamster wheel so hard that I lose sight of any forward trajectory. Slowing down that wheel to take stock of an eternal perspective takes real effort. I'm somewhat in the middle of this and realizing that I need to make this more of a regular thing.