looking for peace

 today was not a good day.

I came in to my office door ajar. Nothing was missing, so I assume it may have been the IT guys plugging stuff in or unplugging it. But internet connectivity was intermittent for the first hour I was there, which was not great given I was wanting to enter exam grades. (The IT guys were doing some stuff with the server racks and it finally resolved). 

But also: apparently someone got into the building last night. The presumption is it was someone without a home who had been sleeping there but apparently when the campus police came and spoke to him, he was found to have some stolen stuff on him. I don't know if it was stolen from campus or elsewhere. I didn't seem to have anything missing (even though someone left the research lab unlocked again). There were a couple things missing that are slightly alarming from a chemical safety perspective  - not for anyone else, but for the person keeping and using them. Or at least the presumption is that that's what happened to the items; I presume it's possible someone was being solicitous on the construction crew or the new custodian and threw them out - but that would still be haz-mat-y.

And yeah, the wider world. Lots of things are upsetting and for me, personally, the rise of what looks like turbo-misogyny in our government is a big concern.

So I am trying to find peace. I changed the sheets on the bed tonight. I used the shark ones (most of my sheets were bought a year or two ago from Target, from their "Treefort" line - they're aimed at kids but really? sheets with sharks on them are great. And I have one with bugs. And another one with winged unicorns.) They're microfiber and I hope they're not too warm (it's still been hot here, I wish it would cool down). I did notice the fitted sheet is MUCH easier to stretch onto the mattress than the cotton ones; either it's a bit bigger or the microfiber fabric is slightly stretchy. That's nice because it's often a pain to put fitted sheets on.

I also weirdly find peace in webcams showing water. I don't want ones that "invade" people's privacy; the ones I like the only humans you see are at a great distance and are things like dogwalkers. 

One of my favorites is the Mackinac Bridge Webcam, broadcast from a Mackinac City hotel:

 It's live (that's a static photo from last summer but when you click the live feed comes up). It's nice to look at at sunrise (earlier than sunrise here) and it's nice to see it at night with the bridge lit up. I've driven over that bridge (Well, ridden over the bridge, as a passenger). Every summer, while she lived (up until 1989), we went up to visit my grandmother in the UP, and because we lived in northeast Ohio, the most direct route was up the middle of the lower peninsula and across the bridge.

I didn't like it much, especially once I got older and got nervous about things like that. And then later (? I think, maybe post 1989), there was a news story about a woman who was driving a Geo Metro and got blown off in high winds. (We were usually in a Dodge Tradesman van - my dad's personal field vehicle - because you could fit a lot of luggage and the cat carrier in it) 

I think the last time I was in Michigan was like 2006, when one of my Traverse City cousins got married. (Yeah, 2006. It was the summer after my dad's knee surgery and I remember riding in the back seat of the minivan - my brother and his wife drove separately - and my dad's walker was sitting next to me, and every time the car took a left turn, it rolled over and whacked me in the knee.)

 

Another one I like is the Port Huron cam; it mostly shows shipping and so sometimes it's pretty empty, but here it is: 

 

 

I'm working again on the "Alive" mitts but haven't done any today; I was kind of Big Mad when I got home about everything (the fact that the building STILL IS NOT DONE though we were promised it would be in early August, the fact that it's not secure, the fact that I'm going to have some students angry because they thought they didn't have to study much for the exam - there were a number of people who scored in the 80s and 90s so I don't think it's me, but I will still be blamed. Most of the people who struggled either have never had me in class before, or are from a different major on campus known to give easier (=all multiple choice) exams, and I give synthesis essay questions as some of the questions on mine. So that, along with all the warfightery talk and the misogyny from official channels, kind of became a perfect storm of "do I actually just want to stomp off to a cabin in the woods and have no contact with other humans"

Sadly it does seem like a lot of days the vast majority of my interactions are either (a) "I want you to do this thing" (on top the too many things I already to) or (b) "I am angry with you because you won't let me do this thing that isn't permitted/ I am angry that you have high expectations" Or like yesterday, I caught someone totally ignoring what was going on in class and while i didn't violate FERPA by saying "you might actually consider paying attention given your last exam grade" but I was irritated.

 

And hurt. I'm more easily hurt these days and it hurts to think that I'm seen as boring and my classes are nonessential, and so it's preferable to look at other websites or read a book (!) while sitting in class. (And for pete's sake, I don't take attendance! You can just skip, you won't lose points!)

So I don't know. I need more peace in my life. And more fun. And some days lately those can be hard to find. I keep telling myself this is a side effect of four classes plus two research projects, but I don't know if that's just it; it does feel like life is kind of on hard mode right now.