Pandora's Travel Mug

Somebody once told me that it gets easier. "It" must be the proverbial representation of life. While I'm really not complaining, and I like my life, that somebody definitely lied to me because I'll be damned if ANYTHING is getting easier. Every semester, I hear and then think in kind, this will be easier. Things will let up. Um, that's not true at all. My first year was mostly just figuring out how to acclimate. Then it was preparing for my major exams. Then it was making up for the fact that I just didn't "get it" (it being the transition) and had to make up for it- and what I'm finding is that things don't swap out for me, they just accumulate. So I'm not replacing one part of hell with another, I'm just getting a pile of things that will eventually, inevitably fall over. This semester, I get 4 classes, I get to teach 2, and write my proposal for my dissertation, and prepare for the exams (again). I'm not sure that I'm going to come out alive, but my advisor seems to think I can handle it and I respect him tremendously, so I'll put my faith in that if not in myself.

So anyway, I decided that what I really needed was some coffee. There's a travel mug on my desk. I haven't had coffee in a long time, at least not at the point where I drink it like I should have an IV- and I can't remember the last time I had coffee out of this mug in particular. I'm going to put it this way, if I could go back in time and stop myself from opening the mug, thereby preserving both my dignity and innocence, I would because coffee should, in my mind, never be a solid again after it's been ground and should also never breed critters. If Pandora had a modern day equivalent, that box would've taken the form of this mug. Oh yes, oh yes. it was that bad.