Quintessence

I've been feeling well enough the past few days to almost forget about lymphoma things but then last night as I was going to bed my bald head in the mirror suddenly rattled me again. Sort of an overwhelming "I can't believe this is really happening" sense that leaves me feeling quite shaken. I suspect this feeling is partly due to the immediacy of the next -- and hopefully last -- round of chemo (which starts bright and early tomorrow). End of semester realities always intensify everything for me in any case.

Tonight we host the final "exam" for our Freshman honors class. It takes the form of 'salon' in which students come in character (various geniuses from throughout history) and respond from their character's perspective to some specific prompts and to conversations with other characters. This year, our teaching team decided to go in character as well. I just got back from the BSU theatre department where I borrowed a powdered wig to help me 'stay in' my character, 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant, my intellectual hero du jour. BTW the powder wig works great as far as my character goes and it has the added benefit of keeping my head warm! Kant is a great inspiration to me since he didn't make his most significant contributions until he was in his late 50s -- he was definitely kind of an odd duck though!/dps