Coming up soon

One more day of classes, and it's my mid-fall break.

(Right now, I am trying to write a Policy and Law exam. I can wait a TINY bit on the bio exam, because I have no one in there - currently - who has accommodations where I need to get the exam over early. I also want to see how far I get on Tuesday).

Oh man, I need a break. Badly. Part of it is just the ongoing pressure of keeping up with Policy and Law, part of it is teaching four classes, part of it is I forget just how IMMATURE first-year students can be. Sometimes the immaturity works in my favor, when they're super-deferential and a little scared, I can use that to encourage them to study hard and stuff, and sometimes they surprise themselves by how well they do. But this semester, there are a few people where....well, I'm just kind of worn-out and demoralized when I walk out of class. It doesn't help that it's my second 75-minuter of the day, right after Policy and Law.

I'm telling myself, "get this exam done, then you just have tomorrow, then Thursday you can attack your messy house, then Friday you get to have fun, and Saturday you get to relax" but it's kind of hard to see that far right now.

I do need to:
a. get some cash so I can pay cash for many/most/all of my purchases
b. look over a few of my patterns to see if there's anything in particular I want to look for yarn for
c. think a little about possible Christmas gifts for family; part of my plan is to knock out at least a little of the shopping then. (I take the gifts up at Thanksgiving because that's the only time I see my brother and his family, and anyway, I have a LOT more suitcase room then)

It will be good to get out, and good to spend the day with a friend AND doing things that have nothing to do with work.

I also might consider, if the Books A Million has stuffed Jiji's, getting one, and making Kiki (from Kiki's Delivery Service) my halloween costume. I have a long, black dress, and I have a silk scarf (orange, not red, but that's okay) that can be her hair bow, and I could get an old-fashioned broom to carry, and have Jiji. (Or, failing finding one in the store, Amazon has a few you can get with the 2-day delivery)

I still don't know, though - Halloween falls on the day I have my class with the gigglers and while I loathe the idea of the "heckler's veto" preventing me from doing something I enjoy, still....that class just wears me out.

My other thought was to get a grey hoodie and pants, and go as Fiona the hippo - I bought a super cheap gray mouse-ears headband at the Five Below that I could either wear, or take the ears off and put on the hoodie, and I'd make a big "Hello my name is" tag and put "FIONA" on it.

But again: as a fattish woman in a class with gigglers, I wonder about the wisdom of going as a hippo for halloween. (Ugh. I hate this. I look at Fiona and see "cute baby hippo that beat the odds" but I know other people would look at her as something else)

I can't think of any historical figure I'd want to do, not without a lot of initial work/buying. There aren't that many recognizable women naturalists of the past, and I went as Beatrix Potter last year. There aren't any recognizable women statisticians, and no one knows the well-known women botanists (and I think Agnes Chase was a tiny little thing, so I have the wrong body type there).

I also got a pair of black-cat paw-gloves and clip-on ears in the most recent Doki Doki box, but the whole "catgirl" thing, in otaku culture, has some strong sexy overtones, and I don't want to go there. If I could just innocently go as a cat, I would, but given the 18-22 demographic I know there are some who wouldn't JUST see a cute cat. (And I'm really too old to be a catgirl, anyway).

Ugh. Maybe I won't dress up at all, I don't know. That makes me sad because that's one of the things about being on a college campus, that you can get away with a costume at work on Halloween, but I can't think of anything particularly good that won't set people off.

(I still might go as Kiki if I happen to see a Jiji for sale in the stores.

The other thought I had, if I had a plain green dress of the right color, was to get a pink rabbit-ears hat and go as Louise Belcher, but (a) I don't have the right kind of dress (and have no time to make one, and no desire to scour the stores for one) and (b) my personality isn't quite ruthless enough to be Louise. (I am more of a Tina, but again - not gonna dress as her, because of my gigglers.)And anyway, I don't have anyone I feel comfortable recruiting to be other characters - if I had a couple like-minded colleagues I could get to be Tina and Gene, that would be awesome, but more or less I'm the only one who dresses up.

(Yeah, I'm still feeling unconfident after some stuff that happened this week. I hate mean people.)