Meno'erwhelmed [men-oh-err-whelmed]; the state of being over-come and over-worked.

The recent break was essential.  For now we enter a period of full-force "filosofee".  Acharya-ji saw that all the travellers were needing a couple days to recover from their holiday… many went down with fever and gut troubles, which is a common thing from an intense journey and dramatic changes of climate.  Thus there were minor concessions such as not having to prepare our own talks (vedantic discourses are like sermons) for two days and no sahasranama japa at midday (chanting of the Lord's names). 

From Sunday, though, it was "all abooo00aaaaarrddd!".

Who was first cab off the rank for pre-class talk? 

Oh yes. 

Yet again there was lots of giggling (from them down there, not me) and about 5 minutes in I had a major blank-out.  Nothing there.  Nada.  Nahi eka vastu.  I had to make my apologies and retreat.  I had made a good start but two things happened.  There was double the audience as an outside group was visiting, so lots of unfamiliar faces looking expectantly.  That's okay, am not a novice speaker.  However, immediately upon the thought of how necessary it was to get the point across, I looked at the time-keeper.  Where was the warning bell for roundup?  It hit me strongly.  I had prepared for the established 6 minute talk and had forgotten that now we were to increase to 8 minutes.

Lost it.  Whatever small stuff I had disappeared altogether.  I was so completely empty of thought I could not even fluff it.  Neither could I be embarrassed or particularly worried.  What happened, happened.  Move on.

So on Tuesday we were reminded of the weight of work that was due and at what intervals.  Today the first of those many assignments got over.  Keeping the momentum will be the challenge, for not only going back over previous material, but maintaining the current texts is where almost all our time is going.  Sanskrit classes have also resumed and this week we had a visiting Swami giving yet a third text discourse twice daily.  … Now I ask you.  If the day is filled with classes telling us what to think about, where is the time left to do the thinking?

This is the pattern that had started some three months ago and I think it plays a large part in the quite severe insomnia I have been fighting.  I cannot say to you I am stressed.  Maybe a few months back, when I still had notions I was going to miraculously override the memory gaps and menosoupal melee,  I could get a bit wound up.  Now though, I just write about it.

Are we up to our ears in metre-long ruminations?  Indeed.  Are we snowed under with expected outputs from said ruminations?  Absolutely.  Are the cracks showing?  Somewhat.

The compensation has been the sense of unity in adversity.  Everyone looks at each other with that knowing in the eye that pressure is on, but "she'll be right mate" is the undercurrent.  Which is true.  It will all come together in the end.  What keeps the motivation is the discipline.  What keeps discipline is the adding and subtracting of classes and manipulations of timetables.  "Keep them on their toes" being the policy.

What keeps us chirpy are the little breakouts from that discipline, either as individuals (like under-cover-of-darkness bloggeresses  K), or in groups (the recent boys' hostel ordering of pizzas  ä) - or even from Head of Mission, Guru-ji, tapping the steam valve (providing us all with Krispy Kreme donuts for afternoon tea ☻).

Yes, it's a bit meno'erwhelming at times.  But they are good times.