Friday evening discomfort

 Not too bad, actually, but I've got one of the Central Illinois tv stations that live streams online because there are tornadoes there, but it seems like my mom's town escaped the tornadoes. It's still possible she got hail, which she always worries about, because she has skylights in the kitchen and worries about what she'd do if one got broken ("Call your insurance agent" is my answer to her, but that doesn't solve the overnight problem, if one breaks late in the day, and they're too high up for anyone around her to get up and cover the area. I guess you put buckets under the opening and hope for the best....)

We might get storms but it looks like the worst here is smallish hail, and my car is garaged, and I have an impact-resistant roof, so I should be fine.

Today I had a lot of pain, though - my knee had been bugging me (I stepped down hard in a hole on Tuesday in the field and while I'm pretty sure I didn't actually injure anything, I sure jarred myself). And then last night I got sleeping on my left side in such a way that my left shoulder kind of "folded" towards the front of my body and I think it just irritated the ligaments or something (this is the side I probably broke the collarbone on in a fall about 15 years ago, and never got treated).

When I got up I almost couldn't move it. I did most of a workout but only did a little of the arm motions, because it hurt. This is the day I go in a little later (8 am rather than 7), so I took a while and tried first a heated buckwheat bag, and then an ice pack on it (the ice seemed to help more, and I had an ice pack over at school from when I hurt my knee, so I was able to put it on for a while during my office hours. 

It did get gradually better over the course of the day (I was afraid at first I might not be able to dress, and pulling the sports bra off after my workout wasn't fun) and now it just hurts a little if I try to raise the arm, and it's much less stiff. So, yay being over 50, I guess? I don't think I actually damaged anything but I did turn down an opportunity to go help with some fieldwork tomorrow because of it (Well, also, I really need to work on my own research and maybe get a little relaxation time in)

I admit I'm a lot less cavalier about small injuries/aches and pains now than I once was, after hurting my knee, and I think my pain tolerance IS less. At least this time it seems to have been really nothing, and I'll just to be careful how I position myself to sleep tonight.

If the weather isn't too bad tomorrow (it is supposed to rain), I might either try checking  out the new Aldi (I haven't been yet; I wanted the crowds for a "new thing" to die down a little) or drive over to the little shop in Bokchito - it's a gift shop/antique store and it's kind of nice, not too far of a drive. I do need to find some small, easy-to-get to (=not costing too much gas, gas is expensive now) things to do just to not stick in town all the time. 

Thursday evening things

 * Got all the catch-up grading done, taught my classes, and I also changed over to the last extraction (3 of 3) of the soils that I collected (I break this one down Saturday; they get 48 hours). 

* I had some cabbage in the fridge that was still good, so I made okonomiyaki. This is one of my favorite simple meals and I make it a couple times a month. It rarely comes out looking so perfect so I took a photo for posterity:

Yes, that's a bottle of the famous "Kewpie" Japanese mayonnaise next to it; the wal mart here carries it, and yes, it's better than the kinds (Duke's or Hellman's) I've bought before.

*I had a little time to relax tonight (for a change), so I worked more on the mitts. I'm within a couple rows of being done with the thumb gusset:

 The staggered-rib pattern is more clear when you stretch it out (like when they are being worn; there is a little negative ease built in)

 * I've also been working on the blanket but it's not at a photogenic stage, but it does feel like I'm getting close to finishing it. I'll be glad when it's done; I've worked on it on and off (mostly off, to be honest) since 2022.

Second field day

 So there are three sites I am collecting from; we got the first (and hardest) one done Friday, and since the student was free again this afternoon, we planned to do the other two provided it wasn't storming.

This week has ALREADY felt long. Monday was hectic in a couple ways at work and then I had CWF in the evening, and it was a LONG meeting. So it feels like I've been through a full week already.

Also, I didn't sleep well Sunday night or last night because there were a lot of things that just had to fall into place, some of which I had to manage, and it was just too many things to remember (one of them being: send off my state tax payment, which I did yesterday). 

I also had unpleasant dreams, though perhaps that's as much that it's hot and humid now and I don't sleep as soundly. But I know a couple of them centered on having a lot of things to get done and being prevented from doing them somehow, and that's a classic anxiety dream for me. 

Anyway, today I had to prepare the soils for the ecology lab tomorrow, and get out and set up at least most of the equipment (this is the hardest lab, logistically and procedurally) and then I had to be ready at 12:30 to meet with the student, and I had to be sure I had all the equipment, and I admit I am also always apprehensive now about how my knee will hold up. 

The student was an hour late (no fault of her own) and I decided driving out that if she had something later in the afternoon (often students have late classes or jobs), we'd just do the one site.

It was kind of a comedy of errors getting there. You have to cross a double train track to the site,, and as we got up to it I saw a train slowly proceeding through. Okay, fine, we sit. But as it turned out.....there was a train sitting on the second track. Okay, fine, we wait for them to move after the first train (they were parked, blocking the intersection, technically against the law but you see it from time to time). There was a brakeman walking around looking at it and finally I said, "There's a driveway about 100 feet back, I'm going to back up and turn and there's a different way I can get there, if this train doesn't beat us to that crossing. (They did not). So we got to the site and found the sample points and as we were getting the soil, I heard a train horn and said "that'll be the train" so we decided to drive back the shorter way.

 But. There was a THIRD train, but fortunately they were moving. I don't know what was up. Lots of tanker cars so maybe oil is being moved around? Given what's going on in the Gulf maybe more domestic oil is on the move now?

Anyway, I asked her if she had somewhere she needed to be. She didn't, so we went to the second site, which is the shortest one to do, and managed to get all the samples but I was really beat (and my knee is sore) by the time we were done. And I got snagged on a greenbriar and tore the heck out of one knuckle, but luckily I had a tetanus booster in 2023, so I should be safe there.

It was after 5:30 when I got home (I set up the second set of extractions)  

So I decided to splurge again instead of either eating cereal or an almond-butter sandwich, and got one of the good big loaded baked potatoes from the bbq place - sour cream, cheese, your choice of meat (I got smoked chicken) and barbecue sauce. I'm glad I did, I needed a big and fast meal.

 

breaking the stall

 Sometimes I get that way about certain books. Either it's a part I find upsetting, or I get bored with it, or I get annoyed at one of the characters, and I put it aside for a while.

(This is different from "I am annoyed at the author's style or where they are taking the story," that's often when I don't finish a book)

I got that way with Between Two Rivers, which is that history of the Mesopotamian area and specifically cuneiform writing.....which I think might be among the earliest, if not the earliest, form? And the first part was interesting with the "mystery" about whether Ennigaldi-Nanna really had a "museum" of things even more ancient than her own ancient times or not...

(And an aside: Another mindblowing thing to a non historian is to be reminded of how LONG the Egyptian culture stretched in ancient times, like how the Sphinx was as much older than King Tut's tomb as the fall of Rome was to Gutenberg's development of the printing press in Europe - but non historians like me tend to think of "ancient Egypt" on this compressed timeline because it was so long ago)

And there were some interesting ideas about how ordinary life might have worked, and what their religion was like, and the fact that women priestesses were apparently not uncommon......

And then I hit up against an episode where she wrote about two cities at war, and something like 5000 to 10000 people were slaughtered (and of course, each side would have their own narrative about what happened)

And she described the "tell" (burial mound) that one side erected to bury the dead of the other side. Maybe for reasons of honor? (though given that the remains show evidence of having been left exposed for a while, maybe it was actually for stopping-spread-of-disease-and-scavengers reasons) and.....they erected a stele with vultures on it, and that was what got me. ESPECIALLY reading it during a new war ramping up in that part of the world (Through really, hasn't it always been at war, more or less), and thinking for a few hours last week that "if things go very wrong, this might be how humanity goes out; one person drops a nuke, and another country - not Iran, they don't have one currently - decides "oh, that's how it's going to be" and drops one themselves, and then all that's LEFT are bones and cockroaches. And that just got me down, and made me sad and scared, and I had to stop thinking about it.

So I read mystery stories for a few evenings and as I noted one of them broke kind of bad (though perhaps it was a very specific horror - essentially, being buried alive - for me)

But last night I went back to Between Two Rivers and manged to push through the upsetting bit into something calmer. I don't know that there won't be more hard stuff to read but maybe I can get through the book now.  

Fieldwork day today

 I needed to get my first spring sample of soils for the ongoing invertebrate project. Fortunately, a botany student was free this afternoon and wanted to come help me. She helped carry stuff, and ran the tape out for the distances, and she held the bags as I dug soil. And she just was there in case I kneeled down and found I could not get up (that didn't happen but I always worry)

Only one from-the-field picture; we were hurrying as rain was forecast (none yet) and it was already 1 pm when we could get out there. But obviously a fire came through here between the last time I sampled and now, there were a couple burnt trees I don't remember:

 

 We got the sampling done fine. I was pretty tired and sore by the end (my knee has bothered me this week). But we got them back and I set up the extractions. These go for about 48 hours, and if it doesn't rain Tuesday we'll go and get the rest of the soil

 I also got a photo of the "Portable" air conditioning unit that's been installed in my teaching lab. It takes up a lot of space and I swan it looks like those tubes could start waving around and it saying "EXTERMINATE" or something similar. 

 After all that, I went home and washed my hair, and decided to get barbecue for dinner:

 I only ate about half of it; it's a lot of food, but then it amortizes out to feeling less of a splurge (the whole dinner was about $18), because you have leftovers for a later meal. 

***

After that, I mostly watched the Artemis splashdown. I admit, I was apprehensive, these past months have sensitized me to "no good can happen it can only bad happen" and I also remember the Columbia disaster (which I think happened on the shuttle's return, if I remember) and Challenger before it. 

But no, it went off perfectly, and once I saw the chutes deploy I relaxed a bit (I didn't fully relax until just now, when all four astronauts are safely on the Navy ship and off the capsule). This was very cool, despite me not being an astronomer or anything. It was just lovely to see some of the moments of kindness and camaraderie among the crew (most famously discussing naming a feature on the moon for Caroll, the late wife of the commander.)

It was also nice to be able to share it - first, Facetiming with my mom at splashdown, we were both watching it, and then later, chatting with friends on Bluesky about it. 

I feel like our country needed a W, and it seems like we got it.  

A busy week

 Last night were the monthly meetings at church. Because it's getting to be budget time (I am on that committee) and nominations time (fortunately not on that one), it was a longer meeting than usual, so that was basically my day after teaching yesterday.

Today I gave an exam and graded two (yesterday's and today's).

I found out that they kind-of solved the "broken chiller unit" issue - there are large (maybe 4 1/2 foot tall) "portable" air conditioners - I use scare quotes because they have to have flexible ductwork (it looks like the white polymer-fabric dryer vent tubes) that attaches into the building ducts, so you can't move them.

It is a solution, but they're very loud. I had to kind of shout in lab to be heard. The good news is the lecture rooms don't have to have them, the AC on that side still works. Also, there's only like 2 weeks of labs left for me in that room, and I don't teach summers (and hopefully it will be fixed over the summer). 

Someone on Bluesky posted - because everyone is sad and often it seems like cruelty is everywhere - that they wanted people to do one kind thing today and then post about it. I can't find the original post again to post to it, but the thing I did that I remember was to scoop up a jumping spider (we have little black and white fuzzy jumping spiders; they're cute. They're probably a Phidippus but I've never really tried to determine species; they're super common). It was walking down the hall near the lab room and I saw it and thought "someone's going to see that and squish it" and I didn't want it to get squished, so I took the paper I was carrying and gently slid it under the spider (I suppose they COULD bite, but they've never been aggressive towards me) and carried it to the nearest door. There's a small garden in the back of the building so I was able to set the spider down in some leaf litter around a clump of iris. Hopefully it can find food out there. (I know I get a lot of those little guys in the house, I just let them be because I'm not afraid of spiders and I figure they get food somehow or they'd not stick around)

So I don't know if trying to be kind to a spider counts, but that's what I did.

I got a few more rounds done on the sock cuff; you can see the full progression of colors here. I do think I'll keep doing the ribbing all the way down the leg and maybe on the top of the foot.

 

 

Two quick photos

 Difficult day again. Of course the geopolitical thing, which, I guess I can at least say when I go to bed tonight I can be reasonably sure that society will still be as functional tomorrow as it was today. (I made an anxious run to the grocery to stock up, you know, just in case, and filled up my car, and got some cash out of the bank, because really these days you never DO know)

But also:

- a friendly colleague of mine who is undergoing treatment for a blood cancer, and I thought they had concluded it successfully, had to have a liver biopsy because something else seems wrong, and it's just, can bad stuff stop happening to people I care about? it's too much on top of everything

- they were taking down a tree near my office, I got to hear it ALL THROUGH MY SEVERAL HOURS OF OFFICE HOURS TODAY and between worrying about what was going to happen in the world and the not-great news about my colleague it about undid my concentration. I got some grading done but that was IT. (I did go back after lunch when the tree guys were on break and got some data entered but left when they came back again a little before 4 and started cutting again)

I'm just TIRED. Mostly emotionally tired. Things seem to have been bad and difficult for very long and there aren't a lot of consolations to make up for the bad stuff. 

I had to put "Between Two Rivers" aside for a bit; she is describing some ancient battle and how it seems like thousands of men were killed, and the rest of that army just LEFT, leaving them on the field, and the victors did apparently (finally; there's evidence of scavengers) gather up the remains and bury them in big mounds, and it's implied it was like 5000 people and it's just.....people have always been bad, people aren't getting any better, all we do is kill each other and I don't want to hear about it any more.

And the mystery short stories I was reading, one of them by a little known writer ended with the missing Oxford undergraduate being found (alive, at least) after being kidnapped by a crazed Egyptologist who wanted to make his very own mummy and since I am claustrophobic and have that "fear of being buried alive*" it was a particularly uncomfortable ending to the story

(*not like buried-while-still-alive-in-a-grave, I know that doesn't happen any more, but like.....getting trapped under rubble or something in a building collapse)

I think I need to find a different book. 

I did work some more on the mitts this evening, I'm up to the part where you start for the thumb part (you can't see it in this photo, though, it's on the other side)

 I also realized I never posted a photo of the green waffle-stitch hat, which I finished over spring break. I think it's because I'm less satisfied with it - I washed and blocked it and it stretched, so it's a little too big. I might try rewashing it and putting it in a warm dryer (inside a lingerie bag) to see if I can shrink it a little

I'm trying to smile bravely in this photo but......this week has already been a lot*

 (* I know, I know):

 

A difficult day

* I think part of it is I'm just tired, and I didn't love when I took little breaks to relax and Bluesky was down, maybe forever? (it's back now). But any more everything is so dependent on a few services that if those go down (like AWS), we're all in the dark, and given what may happen tomorrow evening in the Iran war, I'm apprehensive.

* A weird little thing; when I got home from school and went to get my mail, this was in the box: a plastic Easter egg and as I took it out I sighed and said "if there's candy in it, I ain't eating it" (Yes, I'm a child of the 70s and I remember the stern warnings on Halloween candy)

 but instead, it was  this:

 A Bible verse. From Psalm 139. Which, I guess, okay, but it's not completely Easterish. And I admit I would have liked a few more words of hope, rather than basically an instruction. Yes, yes, I know the way I should go.

I wonder if the neighbors got them too, and if they were different verses. The handwriting looks like someone older than a small child - either a teen or a young woman (I could not write that neatly as a child) so I'm wondering if someone did it and then had their kids put the eggs out.

Anyway, it was just unexpected.

It's just that there's a lot to do at school. Too many things to juggle and I admit I am TIRED. Saturday was entirely out in the field (Well, "entirely" - 11 am to 2 pm, and I was too tired after to do much).

And Sunday I filled the pulpit. Yes, none of the people who ordinarily to was available so I did it, even though I'm not ordained and not any sort of theologian. I guess it went okay.

But things have been A Lot lately and sometimes I feel like I don't have enough time to do what *I* want or even kind of what I need to do (research stuff). There's just lots of urgent stuff that comes up and takes time from other things and I find myself staying over at work later and later, and then I wind up staying up at home later at night as a sort of revenge for "but I didn't get free time" and I can't continue in what I think of as "bare survival mode"

 The world just feels hard, and so even little things make me kind of lose my composure a little bit.

I do think something is going on inside me, I don't know what. 

I did see a bit of coverage of the Artemis mission and I watched the liftoff on Wednesday (I had to look that up, I thought it was more recently than that - that's how I feel like my life is out of my control). And I admit, having been around for Challenger and also Columbia (in 2003, I was already living here, in 1986, I was a junior in high school), I said a little prayer as they lifted off and got nervous when the feed briefly went pixelated. But so far everything is good and I hope they can safely land when the mission is over.

And I saw a bit of the coverage of them going into "radio silence' - as they passed around the moon, there was 40 minutes where they couldn't communicate. The part I saw featured was the  “To all of you down there on Earth — and around Earth — We love you, from the moon.”

And I admit, that undid me a little, hearing it, this evening. I had taken a break from doing some cleaning/bedmaking in my room to look at things and I saw it posted. And I sat down and just cried. 

I *think* part of it is being tired, and just worried all the time now about EVERYTHING. But more: it was just a simple, kind, thoughtful message, and in our culture now that's in such short supply. How often do we hear people saying "I love you" as a general statement to humanity. (I admit it: I cannot love humanity a lot of the time. Or perhaps: I don't LIKE humanity and what it does a lot of the time). But there's so much meanness and upsetting coarseness in what's said now that hearing "we love you" from a man who took on the risk to do something like this....it's disarming, because hearing that kind of language seems so rare now.

And there's actually a longer video than what I saw, and Victor Glover referenced Christ's two Great Commandments, and.....wow. I know, I know, maybe some people didn't like it but I presume Glover is a Christian and feels it and believes it, and it's something that's important to me and in fact I referenced these in the sermon yesterday and it does make me feel like I have something a tiny bit in common with him.

I've read that a lot of people who traveled to space were changed by it - more thoughtful, more cognizant of the fragility of life, perhaps even more spiritual

This link to the video is Instagram but it's the best link I can find quickly. 

But I don't know. I need to hear more words of hope, or someone saying something with care and love, and I want to hear fewer people being insulting or bullying or rudely angry, and some days it feels like those attitudes are pushing out the other ones, and it makes me sad. I mean, I can keep trying to be kind, but if all the people around me turn cruel, then *I* never get to hear kindness myself. 

It's dead, Jim

 Allegedly Bluesky incorporated a bunch of Claude code to its running over the weekend and GUESS WHAT?

 

it's down. 

 

I guess it's just dead. You can find me here and.......I don't know. When I posted on mastodon no one ever TALKED to me so I figured they thought I was too weird or dumb for their site so maybe I'm done with social media and will have to learn a way to get through the day without "talking" about things other than work or cracking my little jokes.

 

I did it before, in the days before social media, but it'll take me a while to adjust

 

well, maybe I get more research done :( 

It's finally Friday

 I started a new pair of socks the other night. They're just going to be simple socks, I might continue the ribbing down the leg and onto the top of the foot; I think that would look good with this colorway

 It's an older yarn from my stash; I had it wound up into a cake for a while (I think I took it as a "just in case I finish everything else" project at Christmas). I think I bought it from Simply Sock Yarn, I'm not even sure if they still it. The brand is Night Owl Yarns and the colorway is Puffins of Fair Isle. I like the colors; a couple of them remind me of lichens. 

I had to run some errands - I was nearly out of one of the cosmetics I use and Ulta is the only place I know that sells it. And yes, yes, I could mail order it, but I didn't want to wait a week or more, and I just needed to get out and look at things. Sometimes I need to get out of town, living in as small a place as I do, and a place with very little that is "for me."

So I quickly plotted out the most efficient path, starting with the yarn shop and ultimately ending with Albertson's (I needed groceries, and I wanted something special for Easter dinner). 

And yeah, I went to the yarn shop first, and spent part of my tax refund.

 I had been looking for that Laine "52 Weeks of Sweaters" - I have several of their other books and I really like them, and yes, they are FULL of patterns. And more and more, I feel like bound books of patterns are probably the way to go. The internet is impermanent, and even having a flash drive and cloud storage of patterns, they can get lost. And I need a printed copy on paper in front of me, because I usually only get a few rounds or rows knit in an evening, I don't want to keep having to scroll back to my place. On a paper pattern, I can put a sticky note next to where I stopped, or even write annotations in pencil. 

The single skein of yarn is a Texas dyer called Chicken Coop; it's a newer yarn the shop is carrying (they've cycled out a few national brands, either because of changes in ownership or because tariffs and such have made them prohibitively expensive) and tried to find some more "local" yarns, which is kind of nice. The colorway on this one is "Mint Julep," and I just like the odd mixture of colors.

The really bright orange-and-pink yarn is a closeout; Dream in Color is one of the yarns the shop is phasing out. I like this colorway (I have a ball of it for mitts that I stalled on and need to restart) and I decided it was so inexpensive I'd get some and maybe make a simple lacy scarf. Those were the last three balls; I think I have a bit more than 700 yards of it. I'll just have to figure out a good pattern.

I did do some other shopping and when I was at the Ulta I saw this - they had been renovating the old JoAnn's and I wondered what it was going to be (I was holding out hope for a Barnes and Nobles, or at least maybe the Ulta expanding and becoming a Really Big Ulta? But Nope)

 

 Boo! or perhaps <Hans Moleman Voice>"I was saying Booooooourlington"</Hans Moleman Voice>

Yeah, I'm displeased. This is just moving from the dead mall so it doesn't count as a new store. And I don't care much for these overstock-discount places; I can never find what I want in them, just lots of stuff I don't really want that MIGHT do but I'd rather not buy unless there's literally nothing else in that category of Stuff to be had anywhere. 

 I suspect it'll be a long, long, long time before we get any "new" stores, given what's happening with the economy, and also the general attitude and finances in the area. 

I did buy myself a few more things, I got food for the coming week plus (including some already-chopped Brussels sprouts; call it lazy but I'm more prone to cook up and eat veggies if I don't have to totally break them down first). I like sauteed Brussels sprouts so I'll make them for Easter, or, failing that, Monday night. I also got a small steak. Beef is horrifically expensive now so I almost never eat it, but Albertson's tiny packages of the filet cut tend to be pretty good, so I got one. 

I also got a few bits of chocolate Easter candy, since it's too hot for it to be sent through the mail now (so my mom won't send me any, and I have literally no one else who would get me Easter candy). And seeing this, I remembered a few years as a child I got a small stuffed animal in my Easter basket, and it was just nice, and is a happy memory.

 It's Chloe, one of Bluey's friends. She's not terribly show-accurate in that Chloe on there is kind of a skinny little girl dog, and this Chloe is plumper (I suspect they use a similar pattern for all the dogs in this line). But she is cute and her ears are pleasingly floppy.

 

Tomorrow is fieldwork with a colleague (a project she initiated but I'll have my name in there along with the students working on it) unless it is still raining. 

week is loud

I don't know if my tolerance is down, or if things are just LOUD now. Sometimes I do hit a point where noise (or it being too warm, or too bright, or a number of other things) feels like it's just too much.

Monday, I had to speak to people in one class about talking during class. Not asking or answering questions or discussing, but carrying on a side conversation.

Yesterday, I had to go down to central campus to help with the children's play. They're doing construction on one of the buildings there and there was a scissor lift with a loud backup beep, and cutting steel, and drilling, and hammering. And then in the building where the theater was, the kids were loud and the music was loud and it was just a lot of people. I had to stay home a bit longer after eating lunch to be in the quiet, but I did get back to campus later to work on some research stuff (but even then, there was noise in the hall). 

And then, late in the day, an e-mail: the cooling system in part of the classroom building died. It'll take 12 weeks to fix EVEN AFTER the money can be allocated for it (it will involve the regents, so that will take a while). Fans are being brought in.

Well, they were here this morning: big, industrial fans that sound a bit like a jet engine. And one of them - the one near the classroom where I teach - had a loud, recurrent squeak. I looked at it in despair when I went there to see what the noise was before class.

I guess I'm too meek and too prone to accept things like that; one of my colleagues came down the hall, looked at it, shook his head, and said "no one can teach with that going. I'm turning it off and calling physical plant"

By my second class, there was a new one. It didn't squeak but it was still loud in a way that sort of invaded my concentration. (I find it harder to pay attention and think when there's noise). It's also very humid in that part of the building now - and this is the part where the AC is still kind of OK). I teach a lab tomorrow in the worst-affected part, so I presume it's going to be unpleasant (I should, if I need it, have time to shower before Maundy Thursday services tomorrow night; I am a reader). 

This afternoon I taught a lab in the field, we were late getting back (every single stinking stoplight, all ten of them we had to pass through, was red when we got to it). I was late getting to the Gen Ed council meeting (I don't like being late) and I had to return the van late (at least the Motor Pool person was nice about it).  But it was a lot and I hate rushing around and feeling like I can't get everything done. 

But it's just a lot.  I'm especially unhappy that things seem to keep breaking in my building - this is the building, remember, we were exiled from for nearly six months while they "renovated" (most of the renovations seem to have been cosmetic). And just, oh, everything. Our most recent job search may fail because the legislators in the state have changed the rules and we can't extend an offer until we get clarification, And now, from Gen Ed council, we're hearing another thing the outgoing governor is proposing may mean a lot more additional work from us. 

And I am just fed up, and kind of in a cycle where a lot of things feel unrewarding because there are so many silly little external thing that aren't really part of what I consider my job, but that I have to deal with. And I feel like I've gotten very few "wins" lately, and haven't really heard any "attagirls," and yes, I NEED some kind of external validation. I know I should not, but I do, and when I got long without any I figure "Well, maybe what I suspected is actually true: I'm not really very good at anything." 

So it's just been a rough week all along, and I don't see much improving with the building environment. 

Tuesday evening things

 * I pulled out a stalled project tonight; these are the "book lovers mitts" (The original design has you change colors every time the ribbed pattern shifts, so it looks like books on a shelf, I guess). I decided to just use a variegated yarn

I started these at Christmas but got involved with other projects and lost my place. I managed to find it again (I think, I had to rip back a little)

I'm using a yarn dyed by Purl's Yarn Emporium; it's one of their DnD themed yarns (that also have a slight Tolkien feel). This colorway is called "Healing Hands," which seems appropriate for mitts. 

It's kind of the wrong time of year to work on stuff like this; we're rolling into the hot months (and March was abnormally warm and dry this year). But you work on what you feel like working on, and if I only knit in the winter I'd almost not knit at all.

* Tomorrow is April Fools' Day. I do not love this day. I tend to be literal minded and I also get wrapped up in what I'm working on or thinking about and so I get "caught." And with my past history of having been the butt of jokes (once or twice even by a TEACHER) as a kid, I hate it extra. It makes me feel stupid and I don't like feeling like that, because I feel "if I don't have my smarts I don't really have anything"

Anyway, I'm going to have to pay attention tomorrow. Because while there are sometimes just funny and silly pranks that are okay, there are also enough meanspirited people who like to be able to laugh at someone else's expense - or people who are literally thoughtless (in that: they don't think) and who don't know me all that well, and don't realize that that kind of thing is very painful to me. 

Because I don't make a big deal about it. I don't get mad, or I don't chew the person out, or explain that I don't appreciate it, because one thing you learn as a bullied child is to react as little as possible - even if it sometimes means putting up with some forms of mistreatment. Because if the person you speak out to is genuinely a jerk, they may actually enjoy your being unhappy and may do it all the MORE.

* And yeah, it does feel like there are an awful lot of mean-spirited people out there, and it makes me sad.

I ordered for myself a small giclee print an artist did - it shows a curled-up opossum on a bed of leaves, and has the legend "The world is cruel; therefore I will not be" and yes, that's true, and refusing to be meanspirited is a form of resistance In These Times but it also does sometimes feel kind of weird and lonely and may set you up to be laughed at. 

I hate how often now doing what I know to be right gets you stomped on or laughed it. I suppose it was always thus but it somehow feels MORE now. 

*Though I also saw a sweatshirt that said "I could be meaner" and sometimes I admit, yeah, maybe I could be. Maybe I could guard myself a little more tightly or yell at people more when they trespass on my feelings or not be so accommodating to other people. But I don't KNOW how to be meaner, and I suspect I would feel bad about myself if I were. 

*It's hard trying to be a "soft" person in a world full of sharp elbows :( 

The finished socks

 I worked on these some over break, but didn't finish them; sometimes plain knit socks get hard to finish the foot on, because it takes a while and it gets a little dull. But I pushed at it over this weekend and got up to the toe, and now they're done

 The colorway is called "Cosmic Dust" - the base yarn also has a silver thread running through it. To me, they look like either a 1980s video-game arcade carpet, or maybe a movie theater color scheme from that era. 

I like them.

And I kind of wonder if the fluorescent-colored bits would glow under blacklight (I don't have one, and I don't think there's one in the department - sometimes we have those for botany classes to show the ultraviolet markings on flowers, nectar guides)

I'm not sure which to start next. I do have other ongoing projects (Mitts, the unicorn, a couple sweaters, Lithos, the shawl) to work on too. I am keeping the shawl for invigilating knitting, at least until I get to the lace part (about 40 more rows)

I might do a cabled pair out of a handdyed yarn I ordered off Etsy; the colorway is called "succulents" and the colors do kind of look like some of the succulent plants that have been popular recently. 

 

a dinner out

 But not at a restaurant!

Our graduate student - who is from India - was cooking for the international student club tonight, and invited us to come and have dinner with them. I went ahead and accepted, even though I am (a) a bit of a picky eater and (b) have some food sensitivities (but he asked, and I told him, and he responded that he'd leave the carrots he might have put in out). 

At first when I got home, I thought, "do I really want to go? I'm tired, I probably won't know anyone there, and I might be the only person over 30 who shows up." But then I decided I HAD RSVPd, and it's possible if not many people showed up, the student might be disappointed. So I went.

It turns out I wasn't the ONLY person over 30. Our horticulturalist (who is younger than me but older than the students) was there; she had served as sort of a sous-chef for him. And then my two youngest colleagues with their spouses in tow showed up (They are probably not OVER 30, but they're CLOSE TO 30). 

It was a simple meal - chicken biryani with raita, and a modified version of roti (the student said they were nontraditionally prepared; I think roti have to be cooked on the inside WALL of an oven and I think they made these on a griddle). Another Indian student - originally from a different region than our student - had made dessert, a sort of bread pudding with almonds, cinnamon, and condensed milk (she warned us "Indian desserts are often quite sweet for Westerners" and even though I generally don't like extremely sweet things, I liked this, partly because she put a lot of cinnamon in)..

 

I did take some of the raita even though it had raw onion (which I have to be a little careful with) because our student warned that "the biryani might be hot for some of you" but it really wasn't. It was seasoned well but it wasn't "mouth burning," it was just flavorful. But the raita was good on it, too. 

All of us from the department sat together and the horticulturalist did come and talk with us a little. So I wasn't all by myself, that was nice. I saw a few people I'd had in class in the past. All told there were maybe 20 people at the dinner. There was plenty of food and the student encouraged the other students to take leftovers (we held back; generally when there's food and students we prefer to let the students have first crack at it; a lot of our students are on tight budgets where having leftovers would be a bigger thing) 

 It was nice, though. It was quiet and sort of a peaceful meal, and I remembered that way, way back when I was an undergraduate I did occasionally hang out at the international student center with the international students, because in some ways I felt I fit in better with them than I did with the average undergraduate. And the international students were interesting people with different experiences to share - but also they often found out that people from other cultures had a lot in common. 

(I was thinking, but didn't mention - nearly every culture has some kind of flatbreads like the roti; of course in Mexican cooking there are tortillas and there's pita in Middle Eastern culture)

We hung around until slightly after 8. Most of the students had left and I got to thinking it might be good to go to let the folks still hanging around from the club clean up, so we walked out together.

But it was nice, a lot less awkward than I thought I'd be, and just a good break in the week. 

small new project

 Yes, I have a lot of things to finish up ALREADY but I got to thinking about a kit I bought a while back at Quixotic Fibers - it's one of those Toft kits (they make up into small, very simple-looking, stuffed animals). This one is a cream-colored unicorn. In typical Toft style, the animal is sort of semi-bipedal (sitting up "like a human"), so not totally realistic. 

I was remembering the little whale I made and thought, "well, at least this one isn't BLACK" except the yarn for this one is the trademark Toft alpaca yarn, and it is a bit splitty.  

I am slightly amused that the given name is "Chablis," I read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" years and years ago and there was a character in there named the Lady Chablis who was one of the typical flashy/showy show business people, and she also appeared on Bizarre Foods once (The Savannah episode). So I might keep the name even though this Chablis is considerably more monotone than the performer by that name was.

 That's the front of the pattern (it's very simple, just one page, and although it's a British made kit, the ones for sale here have the American terminology (It's important to check, though usually you can tell on an amigurumi because the main stitch in American terms is single crochet, which is called double crochet in the UK (and I think, Australia). 

I only got the first of four legs done (the legs are my least favorite part in quadrupedal creatures you crochet). It's kind of fiddly and the first attempt, I skipped over the third round's increases, and had to rip back and redo it.  

Field lab day

 Today was (for the first half of the class) the tree sampling lab (I split the class into two for this, it's easier with a smaller group of people. 

Even as I really enjoy getting out in the field, and being able to point things out like how you can tell post oaks and blackjack oaks apart even if there aren't leaves on the trees, it does make me a little apprehensive. Because I'm responsible for the students - I'm driving the van, so I have to get them there safely and back safely and I have to keep an eye out to be sure people are safe in the field. I will say I have VERY rarely - like maybe twice in nearly 30 years teaching - had someone who was acting a fool in the field and whom I had to tell "either stop doing that or you will have to go back and sit at the van until we're done" but there are cases of things that HAPPEN that are unexpected. 

Or things like having a student tell you less than 10 minutes before you leave "oh by the way, I'm allergic to bee and wasp stings" (it was okay; there really weren't any bees or wasps out there, they claimed they had their medication with them, and I figured if things went really bad we could call an ambulance to meet us closer to town and I could load them up and haul butt to the meeting point)

But nothing bad happened, and the students always enjoy the field labs. 

And leaves are starting to come out. Here's winged elm:

 And what I THINK is the new little leaves on black hickory, Carya texana

 We saw other stuff, the best being mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum), they are already flowering, and are earlier than a friend in northern OK has seen them, and earlier than a friend in NC:

 I also spotted some kind of fruticose (?) lichen that had fallen down out of a tree. Lichens are pretty common here; once upon a time I knew many of the common species but since I've not worked with them in a long time, I've forgotten most of them

 I also made the joke on Bluesky of quoting the tagline from MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" with two plants:

 nanananana nana na na - Can't touch this

 (poison ivy)

and 

nanananana nana na na - Can't touch this

 (A thorny, older, greenbriar vine)

Also, a mystery - this must have been some kind of predation event and things like birds don't eat the wings, but this was a swallowtail:

 I saw that on the way back out at the end of the day. I also spotted (and warned the students not to step on it, because gross) a used prophylactic someone had left in the parking area (it's a horseback trail so usually the only ground hazard we see is horse poo, which is actually less gross to me). One of the guys in the class made a joke about "some people have no shame" because it was exposed to a fairly busy roadway...

I also saw a few Gulf fritillaries (a favorite butterfly of mine) but they were too active to be able to photograph.  

Tuesday afternoon things

 * Got out the data from last fall I never managed to get entered (teaching four classes is serious business) with the idea of doing a little exploratory analysis while I'm waiting for us to get a little rain so I can maybe do a spring sampling. And then I realized I screwed something up in the data I DID enter and had to go back and check it all and redo part of it, and wound up mad at myself for the mistake and frustrated

* And I realized for me, being mentally tired means I feel sad. I felt sad when I got home after that and I just sat for a while, and then I asked myself, "Are you *really* sad, or are you just tired?' And I realized, it's probably being tired. That's also probably why some nights I feel discouraged or a little hopeless about the state of the world in the late evening. At least I'm smart enough to know that if I go to bed, I'll most likely feel better in the morning.

* But ironically, there's also "revenge bedtime procrastination" which is something I've noticed in myself - well, heck, probably since 2020. Staying up later than I ideally SHOULD given how early I get up to work up. But someone - the guy who does Discontinued Food on Bluesky, who is actually a psychologist by training - noted that it often comes about if your day disappoints you and you feel like you're "owed" some kind of compensation or you want to try to take back some happiness from the day, and you know? that makes a lot of sense to me. As I've said, many days don't hold a lot of consolations for me recently, and even though I KNOW going to bed earlier will in the long run make me feel better the next day than playing dumb games on my phone or watching tv will, still I do it.

* A little frustrated with my town, on two counts: first, there are several areas, one close to my campus building, where some kind of roadwork resulted in a torn-up trench, which, they then fill with gravel and just LEAVE. No attempt to repave it, and as far as I can tell, it's not work where repaving right away would be bad. And of course the way people drive here, the gravel gets all kicked out of the trench, so you have to be sure to slow to a crawl (like to 5 mph) so as not to hit it hard and mess up your alignment, and even then it's kind of a jolt, and it makes me mad all the time and makes me wonder which city official is on the take NOW and why don't we have  the money to do a proper repair job? And they also often do that and then just leave an orange pylon stuck in a deepish hole and you have to memorize where all the hazards are so you don't damage your car, and that's really additional cognitive load I don't need. 

And second - there was talk of putting a small park in the downtown area, but it was shot down by the "but there's not enough parking already!" faction - but honestly? Every time I've been down there recently (not a lot, though, for reasons) there's a lot of open parking *because there are ten or a dozen empty storefronts*

And yeah, that's why I don't go downtown a lot - outside of the kitchenwares store (and how often do you need those), there's not much there to interest me downtown, so I don't bother to go. Mostly I go on Sundays if my church-ladies group is going to Roma's for lunch.

But yeah, I would be materially happier, I think, if there was somewhere for me to go in town other than the grocery store and the drugstore, but the bookstore we had moved, and the little gift shop closed when its owner retired, and one of the antique stores is gone now and the shop that very briefly sold yarn has been gone for a dozen or more years....so I have to go to a different state for "fun things for me" and you know, that does make you feel less-welcome in a town.

* I'm still reading on "Between Two Rivers," but last night I needed something lighter and more "narrative" so I started a Sherlock Holmes story. I forget the title; it's in a compilation volume of "academic mysteries" and I guess the link here is a wealthy/aristocratic student at an academy has gone missing, and one of the teachers has,too, and it's not clear if they're connected. 

I dunno; I like Holmes even though I know I'd probably find him dislikable as a real person. And I recognize there are better writers than Doyle. But there is something enjoyable about the stories, and they're a nice escape.  

First little project

 This was from a kit (it came from KnitPicks) I got for Christmas and just never found the time to start. When I was packing last week I spotted it and thought "this is small and will be quick, why not make it up over break?"

It was a pretty quick project. The yarn is designated dk weight but it felt closer to a fingering. It's all cotton, which I had never used for amigurumi before, and now I get it why a lot of the Japanese makers use cotton yarn....it works up pretty easily and it does not split like wool or some acrylics. And it's smooth, which is kind of pleasing, and it makes firm shapes because the cotton doesn't stretch. 

Anyway, it's a tiny orca

 

 The kit has literally everything you need except for scissors - a pattern booklet (with links for video tutorials if you need them; I did not), and the yarn and stuffing, and the little lock washer eyes, and a pretty good quality crochet hook and a nice tapestry needle and even a couple of locking stitch markers. 

My only complaint is *working on black yarn* 

it's hard on the eyes and hard to see the stitches. You can see the base of a small LED lamp there I borrowed from my mom for supplementary light where I was sitting.

Anyway, the orca is really tiny, I carried her back in a pocket of my backpack

I made the (predictable?) joke on Bluesky about billionaire yachts.

The little white patches were hard to attach and I know I did it imperfectly, they're uneven, but I'm trying not to care about it. If I hadn't been pressed for time (finishing it late one evening), I might have taken time to pin them on first to be sure they were even.

But maybe on something so tiny it doesn't really matter?

 

Back home again

 Okay, I posted about the "bus bridge" on the way up, which really was not bad - once they got the train moved into place things went quickly, and the crew was well-rested and cheerful, which made for  a pleasant trip. 

A couple photos, including the traditional one of the Arch:

I also got the traditional boba tea (I can't get them locally to me). This one is strawberry milk tea, which is one of my favorites:

 

I also got to go to the fairly-new Daiso in my mom's town! I had heard of the place but had never been in one (If there's one in my region, I suspect the nearest is in Frisco, which...yeah, I don't brave that traffic any more).

Daiso is interesting. It's basically like the old five-and-dimes or perhaps the modern dollar stores (but I think most of the goods are perhaps a level better in quality, and the prices are higher). They have *everything* - they have a small craft section with tiny balls of yarn (I bought some fuzzy acrylic with half a plan of doing one of those "bunny from a garter stitch square" things just to see how Daiso yarn knits up.)

They have a lot of homewares and I admit if I were outfitting an apartment from scratch I'd probably buy my plates and cups there; they were cheap and sort of sturdy-basic and yet, there was something appealing about their designs. Didn't buy any snacks; some of them only had Japanese ingredients lists and with my allergies/food sensitivities I have to be careful and I don't read Japanese. I did look at some peach gummi candy but sorbitol was a main ingredient and that plays badly with my stomach. 

they do have some toys. A line of Lego-style bricks (but lots smaller) that can be used to make models (the examples they had were birds and animals). 

And they had plushies. And I couldn't resist this one, which I have named Stegan (like Kevin or maybe Steven):

 

He had to ride in my suitcase coming back, no room in my carry on, sadly. (He made the trip fine though)
 

Coming back, though.....well, it started out okay. But then in St. Louis we sat. And  then they announced they were re-opening the doors if people wanted to go back out and get fresh air or smoke (or walk their service animal; I think there was someone with a service dog on the trip)

During the "first" (the regular" wait, when they recharge the water for the restrooms and refuel the train) I did go out and walk a bit. And I saw Bluey's "favourite kind of moon - a smiley moon!"

 

We were stuck behind a freight that had "timed out" - the crew had to go off, federal rules (for safety and the well being of the workers) and it would be an hour or so to get a new crew on. Okay, fine, I had my bed made up already so I got into my pajamas and read for a while, and then when we hadn't moved by 9:45 pm I just tried to sleep. Apparently it was about 2 1/2 hours rather than the suggested hour.

And the problem with Amtrak is, once you get late, you lose your "slot" and you have to wait for freights. Technically this is not supposed to be so, but the freight companies never give precedence to a running-late passenger train, so we pulled off on sidings a lot. We wound up close to four hours late all told. 

So I saw some parts of Arkansas and even Missouri that I normally never get to see. Like this interesting painting on the side of a civic-center type building in Hope:

 I wound up getting three meals on the train. This would be nicer but they're still on flex meals. I can't eat the casserole type stuff but they do do sandwiches now, I got a cheeseburger with dinner (and STILL something in it upset me a little, I don't know what). I got oatmeal and a yogurt for breakfast; that and a cup of tea helped. Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich and interestingly, that was fine. (It COULD have been the iceberg lettuce in the salad with the cheeseburger; sometimes I think iceberg bothers me even when other lettuce doesn't. I had eaten a "green leaf lettuce" set of salad greens several days at my mom's with no ill effects. But then again - she insists on getting the hydroponically grown stuff and washing it very well before serving, and who knows how long that iceberg had sat since it was washed)

But FINALLY we got to Mineola, and I managed to get on the road home. I was pretty wiped out so didn't do as much grocery acquisition as I might (Especially in light of "gas prices have spiked more than 50 cents a gallon while I was gone") but, oh well. 

(I did buy a box of the "Bluey" cereal, which is basically a smaller diameter version of Kix that's colored blue with....Spirulina! I didn't know they could get a blue color from that, I figured it was artificial. It's actually not bad as lower-sugar cereals go; if they keep making it I might buy another box when I finish this one. It's mild and kind of bland and sweet without being overly sweet, and that may have also been what my stomach needed - it was the main part of dinner last night, along with some grapes). 

Happy St Paddy's!

 I bought the shirt - total impulse purchase - week before last because I already had the headband and the shamrock beads and I wanted a full outfit for Discord.

He can wear a dog t-shirt sized large (maybe Medium, not sure if a medium would fit over his big head). 

So I mail ordered a Kiss Me I'm Irish t-shirt because it amused me and I think Discord would enjoy wearing a shirt that said that:

 

 I should try to get some more shirts for other holidays (I have a Christmas one), dressing him up is kind of fun

On the train

For some reason this never published when I wrote it, maybe not enough cell data on the train but this is from Friday 

 At long last. The bus bridge was crowded and loud and hectic and too many people and I wound up feeling slightly carsick and almost migraines.

But now I’m on the train. The crew seems well rested and the sleeping car attendant set up my bed pretty quickly 

Hopefully the rest of the journey is easy

Sorry for huge

Nope, for some reason (maybe because my workplace has created a second Google profile for me) I can’t post photos from my phone 

No wait I may have fixed it and may have found a workaround to post photos from my phone 

This is the enormous limestone mine south of St Louis, we are at St Louis right now 

Dangit I guess copy-paste doesn’t work?

what a day

 It's been a day.

 And I'm sticking around waiting to be SURE the grad assistant gets back - if he doesn't, I need to teach his class. (He is supposed to be back; he spoke to me shortly before my section of the lab, but he's been under the weather - I think it's allergies but who knows). Originally I was slated to teach his lab because he had a doctor's appointment.

I will admit, and I'm trying not to be self-centered about it, but that displeased me. I mean, any other week, fine, yes, it's two unpaid extra hours of work for me, but today - when I have to go home and do laundry and pack and everything else, the thought of getting home late stresses me out. Especially since I had two stacks of partial exams to grade

 

(Partial, because I had MANY absences. Some will be making it up tomorrow). I got through the grading and managed to eat lunch and read over the lab).

And also, just, all that's going on in the world. It's a lot. And also, I have to leave extra early tomorrow; I have to get dinner like around 4 or 4:30 because I have to get on a BUS shortly after 5 to ride to Marshall instead of getting on the train like normal at Mineola. 

 

(I am going to run and check if his car is in the lot; almost time for his lab. If he's not here I will do it) 

 

Yeah, he made it back. He's not so very ill, it really does seem like when I have bad allergies. Maybe he never really experienced them before? (He did not grow up here, he is originally from India and has lived here a few years, it's possible he's hit the wall of "been here just long enough to get sensitized to the pollen")

But that's a relief. I can go home and stick my laundry in, and start accumulating what I need to take. I want to wind off one skein of yarn for socks; I have a couple little in-progress things to finish. And I have to figure out "what books." 

I do want to take "Between Two Rivers," even though it's hardback (fairly new) and is sort of heavy, but it's INTERESTING and I want to not lose the thread of where I am. And I have a new British Library reprint of short mystery stories set in academia, and one of ones set in the theater world, so I could take those - short stories are often good for on the train, less concentration required. 

I guess I really do need a break even though it's hectic to get ready for it when you have no time - I have been out every evening so far this week (CWF, the museum program - which was well worth the time invested - and then last night, the monthly board meetings at church). So laundry didn't get done, and yarn didn't get wound off, and I also am kind of tired and "peopled out" 

I'll be happier once I'm on the train proper; I don't love the bus bridges (it's trackwork, near Longview). Then again, it's not clear it's even happening for sure; someone else on the Amtrak online discussion board said they were slated to be bused and they were not. So I dislike the uncertainty and the extra fussing with the bus thing, but also it's a little anxiogenic to not know "bus or train from Mineola"

 

I really didn't get any "embargoed posts" written (other than one short one), if I have time tonight I might do one or two, or I might try to do some from the road even as posting pictures is a lot harder on my phone because of some strange new permissions quirk in Google... 

A Chautauqua Program

 Last month, I signed up for a Chautauqua program at my campus' Museum of Native American Art. The young woman who spoke to AAUW last year about her Choctaw heritage was doing a program of stories from her life and from the Choctaw people. 

I admit, this afternoon, I was less enthusiastic - I had had CWF last night, Board meeting is tomorrow night, I'd like to stay at home, I thought. And storms were threatening (They aren't supposed to come in until tonight). 

However, I had paid $35 for the program. I figured it was to support the museum only, but when I looked at the details again, it said "come dine with us and hear a program"

Okay, fine. We get fed. I decided to go after all. I was prepared for disappointment, though - often at these things there's something (like carrots) I can't eat and I have to avoid the food.

I'm glad I went though. First of all, at each place there was a nice small salad (spring greens, a maple vinaigrette, dried cranberries, cut up strawberries, and walnuts) and a glass of water (There was wine and beer and iced tea for those who wanted. I don't know if they charged for the wine or beer; I took an iced tea, it was unsweetened)

Then I looked at the menu: beef tenderloin, scalloped potatoes, sauteed green beans, lemon tart. Yes. All things I can eat. 

I saw a few people I knew - a couple faculty from other departments, got to say hi to a (good) former administrator who retired in like 2019. Then someone else walked in and before I saw her, she exclaimed my name.

It was one of my very first research students, from like summer 2001. She's still in town, working in medicine. She was excited to see me, introduced me to her mom. I hadn't seen her in more than 20 years. We got caught up - it turns out I am the only professor left she would have known (we do have someone at the instructor level who was a student with her). She didn't eat; she has that alpha-gal sensitivity (from a tick) and can't eat most animal products or derivatives from mammal products (like milk, that might have been in the dessert. So while a carrot allergy stinks, it's not as bad as it could be.

The food was prepared by the campus food service; clearly it was their "A" menu because it was really quite good, and it was just nice to have a nutritious dinner I didn't have to fix. And the portions were small enough we could eat them in a reasonable amount of time, and it wasn't too much food. 

 

And then it was the program. The woman who gave it will be one of our graduates in May; her degree is in English with a Choctaw minor and her skill is as a storyteller. She is VERY good. She obviously learned from a lot of people. She shared two traditional stories and then talked about the woman who had been her inspiration - and who has done a great deal to revive the Choctaw language. 

The first story was a children's tale of how the Opossum got its naked tail - very similar to the "just-so" stories a lot of cultures had. Basically, the opossum was vain and proud of his tail (which in those vanished days was fluffy and beautiful) but he was jealous of the raccoon, whose tail had stripes. When the possum tried a trick to make his tail striped, he lost all the fur off it and wound up with the naked tail. 

(It seems that "being overly prideful is bad" is a common theme in Choctaw stories; the second one had an element of that too. I suspect it's something a lot of people in culture in general need to learn these days).

The second story is one that is apparently also on YouTube, told by Tim Tingle - it's about the Lone Hunter , who was a very skillful (but boastful) Choctaw hunter back when they lived in Mississippi. He violated some of the traditions of the tribe - going out hunting alone, and then, one night, staying out alone all night, and he saw what might be described as being like what we would call the Grim Reaper. 

The story starts out as a definite ghost story (at one point, she smacked hard on a table as a sound effect and we all jumped) but it transitions to.....really a rather sad story, in that the Dark Spirit was a young man who died in an accident while out hunting alone, and because he had never had a proper burial, he became a restless spirit. So the Lone Hunter and other men of the tribe found the bones, gathered them, and buried them properly. And it turned out the scary experience was a lesson for the Lone Hunter, to use more common sense in the future....and at the end of the story, there's a line about how every evening after that, he would go to the young man's grave and sing him a song, or bring an offering of food.

Every culture has its parables, I guess. 

Her last "Story" wasn't really a story, because it was "real life" - scenes from the life of Ms. Billy, her mentor, and how as a young woman she would go with her family to church (which could last all weekend and wasn't just church, it was singing and socializing, and settling disputes) and how she started doing a form of ESL education (in the early days of Ms. Billy's career, there were some students who had only spoken Choctaw at home, and they struggled in the English language schools of the 1960s and 70s) and she wound up helping teach Vietnamese refugee children, as a result of her experience with the Choctaw students. And the speaker talked about how Ms. Billy had basically lived two cultures - general Oklahoman culture, and then her own culture, and it was very interesting.

I enjoyed the program a lot (and the dinner was nice, too) and I have to say at one point I thought "Oh yeah, now I remember why I live in a college town - to be able to do things like this"

I may need to motivate myself more to go to more programs on campus, definitely better than sitting at home, and it was nice to get to see people I knew. 

the time change

 This one was rough. Losing an hour jetlags me more than gaining an hour does. I UNDERSTAND why we do it, but I feel like we do it too early in the year (and go back to standard time too late). It's not going to be fun driving in a few minutes after 7 am tomorrow; it will still be dark here (on M, W, F, I go in around 8 and it was just getting light; tomorrow I go in shortly after 7 - I have an 8 am class - and I have to remember to go turn on the muffle furnace first). I've already warned my chair if they go to "year round DST" I will no longer teach 8 am classes (I could see either my state deciding that, as the outgoing governor has a wild hair to issue a lot of weird (derogatory) executive orders, or get it Federally (It was done in 1974, during a PRIOR oil crisis, apparently on the grounds that it somehow saved electricity or heating or something? All it did was make it darker in the morning - I JUST remember it, for part of 1974 I was in kindergarten, morning kindergarten).  It's actually a little dangerous to drive in the dusk here; some people don't turn on their headlights (!) because I guess they think it saves on gas; other people have those brighter-than-the-sun aftermarket LED lights that blind oncoming drivers. 

I live near the western edge of my time zone, so it stays darker earlier and lighter later during the first few and last few weeks of DST, and as I said, it's not great for driving in

There were also a couple years where I taught an 8 am class and a 5 pm class and if I didn't take time between them and go home for lunch or something, I'd have days when I never saw the sun at all, and I didn't like that. 

I also do feel tired from losing the hour and not sleeping great last night (it was very humid; I struggled to work out this morning and it was only when I checked the dewpoint midday (at that point, 66 F) that I stopped worrying something new was wrong with my lungs. 

I broke down this afternoon and turned the AC on - yes, it's way too early, but I need to breathe and it was very uncomfortable in my house. And I need to sleep tonight. 

I will say, even with all the time change mess, it is nice coming home from an early evening meeting and not having to drive home in the dark; I came home from CWF to this at about 7:40 tonight 

 SO that's pretty nice. 

The timer I have the fairy lights set on comes on later (doesn't matter most days; I'm still at work) and stays on later at night. I also have a little battery operated set on a timer around my shelves, which I changed out and moved my Dr Opal Lee doll to the shelf with the other Barbies and put up a couple of my Schleich unicorns: