Budding.

One thing about the summer course is that it has me up and out in the world earlier than I'd normally be (or than I'd generally choose).  And the colors are different, early on.

In the press of the course, which requires action and maintenance for hours of each day, my packing has completely ceased, leaving me a massive project for the weekend.

Just before the middle of the night Wednesday, the power cuts out, and only then do I hear a transformer blow.  This afternoon, we learn how our students coped with the absence of computers, the suspension of written work: clustering together with their few flashlights, poring over their reading assignments in near-dark.  We learn that a fire started in the transformer.  I find this news more disturbing by far than our usual suppositions of suicidal squirrels.   

By evening, I watch a movie with my excellent friends, and within twenty minutes, I am sound asleep on the couch.  "I think we've lost her," I hear them say when I surface briefly.  "I'm just so exhausted," I protest, slipping under again.