Presently, yours truly is on spring break. However, while many are basking in sun in Florida and Mexico, I return home and work. I could certainly afford to not work, but there are reasons why I do. I could not afford to take a vacation. While there has been some relaxation despite work, it has been painfully difficult to find the time and energy to post to WMassP&I.

At school, the situation is much more intense. I work 20+ hours at a restaurant. That number goes up when the Sox are in town. Then there is work study for 9-11 hours a week. Oh, yeah and class. That’s all day Tuesday and Thursday and Friday afternoon. And I’m lucky, many students have many more classes.

Now, amidst all of this I try to blog. Alas, on the days that there is good news to comment on (assuming I have a chance to catch it), it may be a heavy day or a paper is due or a test to cram for. Plus, your webmaster is not just blogging on politics. Citizen-lobbying is often on the menu. A few trips to the gym, too, ladies. lol.

So what of this little semi-narrative? Well, I hope understanding from my adoring fans. Maybe a bit humanization, too, as WMassP&I is about politics and Springfield, not me. But in fact there is a connection to the former. Mainly the notion that so much work must be put in to afford school…and find the time to be politically observant. It would be a joy to spar more often with people my own age than just the fixtures of politically observant. It seems a shame that so many student, particularly at BU, who do not have to work remain unconcerned with these issues. Moreover, I would work, even if I had a full scholarship. That’s just how I am.

There is a greater part of the picture, too. The importance of work goes beyond just paying for school. It can be tiring, tedious, and other words not suitable for a Sunday liturgy, but it is also redeeming…at least for somebody my age. I do not have to look far to see people with much more to pay for than college. The point here is to underscore the point, however convolutedly, that working does a great deal for people and offers crucial perspective.

This is something that is lost on many, many people. Greedy, heartless, Republicans, whose only goal is money at any cost to both people and the Earth. However, I also speak to the liberal wing–the liberals conservatives are referring to when they use “liberal” disparagingly (no liberal is not really a bad thing)–who tend to forget about the people on the ground floor. Their indifference to the plight or, put less dramatically, the situation of real middle-class people makes them just as bourgeois and complicit as any of the villains they claim to oppose.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a stepladder with which I can get down from my high horse.