it can't be good for you if you want it that much

Sitting in Halcyon, having just spent my entire day trying to grade one of the two essays on my students' exams. I have come to the conclusions that they do not actually get it. They're just good at pretending. I had three, yes three, perfect scores on that one question out of over eighty exams. Ah well. I can't make them learn it, I can only present the information. It's far later than I had planned on being out, but a "study date" with Jess is not a bad way to spend five hours.

Over the past few days I've been thinking a lot about stress levels and what it's doing to my body. Suffice to say the situation is getting ridiculous. My overactive brain needs rugby. When I play everything else - and I do mean everything: stress, pain, worry - slips away. I have yet to find anything else even remotely healthy that does this for me. So I'm considering practicing next Tuesday. Probably not one of my better ideas, but I need to hit something. I really need to hit something. At least I can be fairly certain that graduate school causes this level of stress in everyone. All the post-docs and older grad students I've talked to about stress had their own chronic symptoms, from migraines to grinding their teeth. Unfortunately no one has a definitive way of dealing, either.