Thursday, November 07, 2024

Thursday afternoon things

 *Knit a bit more on the mitts, didn't get much done because I was tired after the field lab. I find I tire more easily now when I have to be running around a lot, even though walking on the knee actually makes it hurt less the next day. 

* I bought a couple of James Baldwin books after reading a bit about him. I read the first essay (Autobiographical Notes) in "Notes from a Native Son" last night but was so tired I may have to re-read it because I don't remember a lot of it as well as I'd like. (I am trying to read more - I kind of hate to use the word, but "diverse" books now, ones written by people from different backgrounds to me, and Baldwin seems like a good place to start. I did enjoy the essay, it's just, like so many things now, the facts don't seem to get traction in my brain. I'm sure if I looked at it again I'd remember more than the vague outline of him wanting to be a writer despite his dad wanting him to become a preacher)

* I'm just kind of demoralized about teaching now. After first that issue of the print shop, where I got "yelled at"* because I didn't realize that they didn't receive my exams and then they kind of messed them up when I asked them to redo them. And now the IT didn't reinstall a stats software package I asked them to reinstall over the summer, and which they told me earlier this week they had done, and I was embarrassed in front of my class yesterday when we went in to use it and it wasn't there. I've sent them two e-mails about it and maybe I just e-mail them daily until they fix it. It's interfering with my ability to teach at this point. And the student in another class who complained at me that my exams were to hard and who implied I was a bad teacher was caught twice dinking on their phone in class and I just give up. 

I'm having no work success despite putting in long hours and it's really bumming me out.

(*I tend to interpret things as being "yelled at" for things that might not rise to that level)

* Even though I scarcely knit any more, I've been ordering some "emotional support" yarn (to use the term a friend used on Bluesky). First, another order from Purl's in Asheville, a Hobbit-themed colorway called "Second Breakfast," probably for socks, and today, I found a yarn dyer in Powers, Michigan (which is barely 30 miles from where my grandmother lived) who does "Great Lakes Themed" colorways, so I have some Isle Royale Aurora (with sparkles in it) and Pictured Rocks (with nepps) colorways on their way to me. 

I do need to get back to just knitting, maybe stop trying to find things to watch on tv and just putting calming music on and knitting to try to unwind. I wish I were better at turning my brain off. 

* I don't have a photo but the little Mackenzie plush I finally found in stock somewhere came, so I have my "anxiety pupper" now - and yes, Mackenzie reads as anxious in a couple episodes of the show, the biggest one being where he's playing astronauts with two of his friends, and he wants to explore a black hole but he also asks them to "play like you've left me behind" and in the end, it turns out he's still reliving the time when as a tiny kid, he thought his mom left him behind at a play park (and at the end of the episode, in his imagining, Calypso the wise and kind teacher comes up to him and says gently, "You know what's here now. You don't need to keep coming back to this place." 

and.....and that caught me when I first saw it. Because maybe that is how you heal from that sort of thing (and yes, I have some of that sorts of thing in my life and memories) by recognizing it happened, but you don't have to go back to it.

One of the things I like about the show - and again, I think it's a very wise show, and very emotionally intelligent - is it shows the kids working through things that trouble them. There's also the episode where Bluey finds an injured budgie, and she and her dad take it to a vet, but the vet can't save it, and later, Bluey wants to act out the thing again, with Bingo playing the role of the budgie (except Bingo doesn't understand it, and she plays a surviving budgie, running around and squawking, and Bluey is sad/annoyed).

And I wonder at that: do kids act out sad things or things that worry them? And do they do it as a self-comfort ("I survived this, remember?") or as a way of gaming out situations? I mean, I know a lot of my rumination and "worrying" over bad things - stuff my dad used to tell me "don't borrow trouble"  about - was that my feeling was very much "if I can figure out the worst that can happen, I can figure out how to respond to it, and it will keep me safe in case that happens" 

(And yes, I am doing a bit of that now)


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