Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Wednesday afternoon random

* Probably the best way to describe how I feel after two days of meetings is "jetlagged." It's almost as if time didn't really exist, sitting in that dim, windowless room. Walking out into the bright sunlight after I felt like we'd touched down in some strange place different from where we had been before.

Then a grasshopper jumped onto my bare leg (I was wearing a skirt) and I realized we were still in the same place.

* It's a little annoying to hear the morning weather-guy go, "It's gonna be a lovely day, go out and enjoy it!" when (a) you are mandated to be indoors all day long and (b) when you will have some free time, it's supposed to be Death Hot again.

* I did wake up with a migraine middle of the night last night. Took medication, the headache was gone this morning, but I still don't feel GREAT. I might just make oatmeal or something that doesn't take too much work to fix, eat, OR digest tonight.

* About what I said the other day: It's not that I never revise or adjust my teaching. What I don't do is give my teaching the equivalent of a radical facelift. Because for me, how I teach is an extension of my personality, and it's very hard (I think) for a person to change their personality. (And also, I have issues with being expected to change fundamentally who you are, when who you are is basically okay, just because Change Is Good.)

*If I never hear the "sage on the stage vs. guide on the side" motto again, I will live a happy life. (One person subverted it a bit and added "the ass in the class." I am going to presume they meant the donkey kind....)

* About the events (one big event, mainly) of the past days: I'm dismayed (though not entirely surprised) at how ghoulish the American newsmedia can be. And I'm even more dismayed (based on stuff I heard second-hand that went on on Twitter)  at how thoughtless just random individuals can be. I'm guessing giving St. Peter an "I did it for the lulz" explanation for whatever it is you're questioned upon will earn you a ticket for the "down" elevator. I don't know. How some people act at least some of the time, it makes me sad. Maybe those people are perfectly lovely people otherwise who just had a brief and stupid lapse. But I don't know, it seems to me how you treat those who are hurting (or, from the famous old saying, those who can't do anything to advance your career) is pretty indicative of what you have inside your heart.

* Reading: I never finished (never got that far in it, actually) "Adam Bede." I want to correct that now. (The main reason I stalled out: I was traveling, and this is an old and slightly fragile book I didn't want to carry along with me, and then I got involved in other things). I think that will be the ticket for tonight because it's restful and is distant from any any all discussions of Gaza, Ebola, police-involved shootings, and other distressing things currently going on in the world.

* I started a new sweater (a vest, actually) out of KnitPicks "Galileo" in the color they call Firefly, which is sort of a green with a goldish cast to it. (I'd call it "peridot," if I were looking for a fancy name to it). I really like knitting with Galileo - nice stitch definition, it's a sportweight that is part bamboo so the finished item won't be too heavy to wear. And the color is pretty. (And I can sing "Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro" in my head when I knit on it. Heh. Now I think of rewriting Bohemian Rhapsody to be about knitting: "Mama, I frogged the coat, pulled the yarn off the size eight, now the yarn's all kinky, not straight." Yeah, it would need some work.)

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