A partial ray

 Today was another horrifically busy day. After my morning classes, I spent time on the phone YET AGAIN trying to convince McGraw-Hill that NO their website was NOT linking with my class BlackBoard page. Finally, I think I got it sorted (I hope).

Then, this afternoon was partially this:

Setting up two lab rooms for a distanced soil-invertebrate lab - the two rooms are about 30' apart and I don't have a TA so I will be running back and forth between them tomorrow (Maybe I wear slacks, then, so I can wear tennis shoes; I kind of tweaked my knee again and probably need more support. 

The stations are 6' apart, and to ensure that I needed 2 rooms for fifteen people. The biggest effort was finding enough dissecting scopes that weren't broken - we missed our microscope maintenance day this year because of being shut down.

I hope it goes okay.

It is very tiring to do all these extra things - in normal times, I had the students share 'scopes and I only needed the eight or so I had in my room. And I didn't set them all out like this, but I wanted to avoid people bunching up as much as I could.

 I also went and picked up a giant catering pan of lasagna and other fixings from the local good Italian place; they're trying to have "physically distanced" college-student ministry nights at church and it was my turn to provide food - I figured that restaurant food was better (the lasagna was super hot when I picked it up, and I know this place is careful). So again: trying to provide a little normalcy for the kids.

What frustrates me is seeing people writing thinkpieces on "college during a pandemic is a rip-off" and they never consider the effort that professors trying to teach in-person go to. I am trying very hard to make this as close to a "normal" experience as I can for my students. (And it makes me sad because I have no one to go to the trouble for me to see to it I have any kind of "normal" experience. I only have me to take care of me, and many days I'm frankly too tired for much in the way of SELF care.)

I did get a little this evening though.

This is the "Yarnigans" manta ray pattern I bought a while back. It doesn't look like much yet without its "flap flaps" (fins) or the "cephalic ridge" on the front - there is a mouth (that gets indented after it is stuffed) and then you knit the ridge on the front of the head. 

I'm using Lion Brand's "Woolease Thick and Quick," which for a bargain yarn is pretty nice, actually. I would kind of like a winter sweater made of this even though it would be very warm for here (probably a cardigan or a button-front hoodie would be nicer than a pullover). The eyes are Suncatcher Eyes "dragon metallic" eyes - I figure these work well on the yarn, and also, I think rays have that reptilian vertical-pupil eye. 

I also have a new sleep mask 

Hatsune Miko (the Japanese "vocaloid" hologram-girl) powering back up overnight. I have a small collection of sleep masks now but it's good to change them out; I have a nice one with the night sky on it but it's a heavier fabric and frankly is kind of hot for this time of year. 

I can probably, if I go to bed now, get in a few minutes of reading before I want to go to sleep....