It's almost done

 Teaching for the semester is over. (Well, it was over on Wednesday, when I did the fastest recap of an entire semester's stats ever, after that I gave an exam Thursday and students did presentations on Friday). 

I don't know. The best I can say is I survived this semester. I don't think I taught all that well, I didn't accomplish much. I found having to tamp down anger/frustration/sadness more than I wanted to - I will say I didn't vent it at people (I did grumble at the technological stuff a few times, audibly, in class). Because the stuff isn't my students' fault, even the ones who did poorly in class - they are coming, some of them, off of two years of poorly-done "virtual" high school, they didn't learn study skills as a result, and it's hard for me to be totally angry about them not picking up on some of my fairly broad hints of "study this, it will be on the exam"

My exams are written and the grading I had as of 4 pm on Friday is done (a few more things probably came in overnight but I think I am taking this weekend off.) Next week I give four exams but at least one is mercifully machine-graded. I do have one or two people who had to isolate for a day or two who will be making up the last hourly exam during finals week. (I hate this. I hate this new reality, that this kind of flexibility is necessary. I hate having to remember "okay this person is coming in at 2 pm so you have to stay around at least that long, and this other person is coming in tomorrow at 10 so you can't schedule the meeting you need then...." it's a lot to remember)

Today, omicron be damned, I am going to the yarn shop.And I might leave early and go to Ulta first; I need a few things and I see they open at 9 - so I could go there right as they open and then drive the remaining 30 minutes or so to the yarn shop and manage to avoid crowds at least.

(I talked to my mom last night. She is still sanguine about me coming for Christmas. I did suggest if she could find the Binax tests that maybe she get a set, and I'll just distance from her for the first couple days and then take one to be sure. I'm being extremely careful but I also will have traveled on a train where there are other people. I really don't know how to navigate all of this and I am probably being more careful than I need to but I would never forgive myself if I were infectious and made someone more-vulnerable than me seriously ill)

***

I think one of my issues right now is my perfectionism has come roaring back, but instead of taking the form of "everything you "make" [down to writing quizzes] must be "perfect"" it's taken the form this time of "you must do everything ethically correctly, you must behave in ways that will not harm another person" even though I know we all really live in Omelas. But with a raging pandemic it's easier for me to SEE that "that thing you want to do might wind up hurting someone else" and to continue to ignore a lot of the other things where people are in some ways "hurt" so that I can enjoy life in a modern country with cheap clothing and being able to buy silly toys and widely available produce. 

I don't know how to make the little demon shut up that sits on my shoulder now and tells me that doing some of the things I might want to do are risky, and that I should just stay strictly home except for work and absolutely essential shopping. I tend to be a black-and-white thinker and it's hard to break out of that. 

 Unless omicron absolutely locks us all down again, maybe I go back to the counselor to work on this? I don't know. It seems unfair that in addition to dealing with a pandemic I also have to bail extra hard to keep my own little mental boat afloat.

***

 Thursday night was the AAUW Christmas party. It was good, I was pretty tired by the time it ended at 9 pm - I could have done with an earlier end (a lot of it was people talking about other people that I didn't know, and things that happened even before I moved to town).

Someone who knits (and who has a complexion/hair color it suits) got the hat I made and they were happy, so I was relieved my present went over well.

I was the LAST person to pick (we do a modified version of what is sometimes called "dirty Santa" - you have each person bring a wrapped present that is a "general" present in the sense that a lot of people could use it - and then you draw numbers, the first person is the first to choose and unwrap a present, the second person can pick a present OR "steal" the thing the first person has, and on down the line. At the very end, the first person gets a chance to do a "forced swap" with anyone since they didn't get a chance to steal.) My gift was the smallest and people kept overlooking it and I thought "it will be really awkward if no one chooses it and I'm the last one left" but fortunately the next to last person chose it. And then I had yet another ethical dilemma - do I take the last gift (a small box that I suspected might have contained coffee beans or something I'd have to regift) or "steal" from someone else. 

Well, I decided to be selfish and maybe "unethical" in some sense (though in keeping with the spirit of the game):

 it's one of those faux-fur throw things - not an expensive luxurious one (there is a price limit on these things) but one of the reasonable ones that a lot of shops sell. I guess it's supposed to look like lynx? But I liked it and I decided - heck it, I want that. (The woman I stole from stole a set of bowls from someone else, who then wound up with an amaryllis. The person who the amaryllis was stolen from then took the last package, which was a candle and a tea towel, which would have been okay if I had decided to take that, but the throw is nicer and more useful to me).

I did wash it last night (I am more germaphobic than I once was, but I am also leery of residual chemicals in manufactured things like this). It washed up pretty well

Also, my Christmas present to myself came yesterday. Way back in April 2020 I started crocheting a Wooloo Pokemon but did not get very far, and now I feel like I might not be able to finish it because of bad associations with that time. And Pokemon Central (which I have always been very happy with ordering from, they ship fast) had "Squishy Plush Wooloo" for sale:

The Wooloo (name and gender* still to be determined) is, indeed, very squishy:

Heh. we also do a toy drive at the AAUW party for one of the local charities collecting toys for kids; several people brought stuffed animals and one woman had to hug all of them and noted that "it's nice to have something to cuddle with" (and noted that that was why she had a dog - she is a widow) and yeah. That's a big reason I keep having stuffed animals; sometimes you need something to hug and I've learned again my "furry animal allergy" is enough that I'm convinced a live-in dog or cat might not be a good idea

(*Leaning towards Wooloo being a she, and getting some kind of Old British/English name because she's supposedly from the "Galarian" region which is a stand in for the UK. So maybe something like Fenella or Catriona or Beatrix. Actually, I rather like Beatrix....)