today so far

 Did a quick test, even though it's not been five days, since I had a slightly scratchy throat (almost certainly allergies:)

blurry photo because my hand wasn't perfectly steady but: another negative test. I will test tomorrow night when it HAS been closer to five days but I suspect I didn't get enough virus/my four vaccines are protecting me. I will still mask in class until I get a negative test on Labor Day

Came in to work, to this:

Apparently the air conditioning overflow pipe (?) leaked. Destroyed a few ceiling tiles.

Could have been worse - the secretary's office (through that darkened window) is right below the men's room; if the leak had been in there we'd probably have been sent home to teach from home. 

Still, that's gonna mean more mold in the air 'cos they're not exactly speedy about swapping out the soaked ceiling tiles. 

****

Recently I started reading "Anne of Green Gables." Yes, I had never read it as a child! (I preferred stories with animals in them, or animals as the main characters). I have a big annotated version I think I got as a birthday or Christmas gift some years back. I'm surprised in that most of the annotations are references to sayings or terms I already knew - is my language knowledge just broader than many modern people? Or did my growing up with relatives with links to Canada/who were of an earlier generation than my peers' relatives give me an education in old proverbs and idioms? 

I will say, so far I like it a lot. And it's surprising in some ways - for a book published in the very early 20th century, for Anne to say something like "I know about God but never really think much about Him" (partly because she HAS had a kind of traumatic early life, I think) is kind of surprising - my stereotype of Victorian/Edwardian girls' novels is that the expectation was the girls were supposed to be devout. 

Anne is also - well, she's a HANDFUL. (In some ways she reminds me a bit of myself at that age, and a bit of my niece). She talks ALL THE TIME (I wasn't like that but my niece is), she has an incredibly active imaginative life, she insists on renaming things to suit herself, she's unwilling to accept the status quo so she reimagines it to something nicer. (I've seen a few things online suggesting she was an early example of a girl with ADHD and yeah, maybe, though I think we're also maybe a bit prone these days to pathologize normal high-spirits in children, or a bit of refractiousness, or whatever. I know people claimed my brother was "borderline hyperactive" when he seemed....just kind of like a typical boy?)

And yes, I know there are sad parts. I know there is one part where I will probably cry hard for personal reasons, I am ready for that. But the story itself is remarkably good and the writing is compelling and I'm a little annoyed no one put me onto reading this before. 

(I'm just up to the part where she is going to meet Diana for the first time, so I am not very far in)