Week is over

 * I'm glad this is not my spring break; this would have been a heck of a time to try to be traveling to Illinois. As far as I know, my mom is OK - I called her a bit before seven to see how she was faring and she said all that was happening was wind. I'm watching The Weather Channel now and they mentioned Bloomington, but it was the one in Indiana, and as long as nothing bad passed through her area last hour, she's fine, because it's moved on now.

But it does look like a bad tornado hit Little Rock, and there was a bad roof collapse at a concert in northern Illinois, so unfortunately there will be deaths with this one. I don't like tornadoes; they are my most feared "natural disaster" type thing that I might experience (Flooding, you can mostly avoid - and I chose a house out of any floodplain areas, and what earthquakes we've had have been very small, but tornadoes are an old, old fear - the very first news thing I remember (and that just vaguely) is the 1974 tornado outbreak that leveled Xenia, a town in southwestern (IIRC) Ohio. I don't THINK we went to the basement for that one (my brother would have been just a few days old, but I think he was home from the hospital at that point - he was born a couple weeks before due date, but the OB said he looked like a "ready" baby - apparently they could tell by the development of the creases on the soles of the feet?)

But yes, I remember a few nights as a kid being woken up and ushered to the basement, and more daytimes when someone would have to grab the cat and my brother and we'd all troop down there to wait out the tornado warning.

* Did a little clean up this afternoon; did all the laundry, changed the bedsheets (Normally I like to do that every week but I've been so busy I let it slide to two weeks - I sleep alone and shower before bed so it's probably okay, but also, with allergies, it's good to change the sheets regularly.

* I need to do a little work tomorrow (And take up and put away all the herbarium sheets from yesterday's lab) but at least I get a little breathing room. I do have to make a Mart of Wal trip; if they have either exercise mats or yoga mats in their sports section, I need to get one.

I was "discharged" from PT today (Really: I had made sufficient progress and my insurance didn't want to pay for more). I have printouts of the exercises I need to be doing but one thing I've noticed trying to do some at home is that the hardwood floors are too hard and I think I hurt myself doing it. I'm hoping for some kind of thicker pad but with a nonslip bottom (A folded blanket slides around too much) but a yoga mat will work if that's all I can find. 

At least I'll get that time back during the day (it takes me less time to do the stretches at home, and I can do them late in the day) and I won't have the co-pays any more. 

* One other thing that happened - the intern who was helping me (spotting on some of the equipment) commented "I think my mom was in your class last semester!" I thought I could guess who based on similarity of appearance and the fact that I really only had one woman in that class who seemed remotely old enough to have a twenty-something daughter, so I said "what is her name" and she told me, and yes, it was. So I said "Yes, I remember her!" and then added, not thinking "she did really well in that class' and then clapped my hands over my mouth and said "oh no I just violated FERPA" but the daughter laughed and said "oh she told me what grades she earned" and then said "She enjoyed your class a lot and said she learned a lot"

I think her mom is some kind of pre-professional; at any rate I see her from time to time in the student lounge, studying, so she must be taking further biology classes (I *think* I remember her saying she wanted a more-advanced nursing degree than the one she already had?)

And okay, okay, I get it - last week I literally cast my eyes up to the heavens and said "Look, I am going to need some kind of independent verification that I am supposed to keep on doing this, because right now I have zero confidence in my teaching left" and then yesterday I get that student telling me that I convinced her to enjoy the subject and now this. 

Still, it would be nice to see those little reassurances more regularly. 

* Next week is Holy Week. We get Good Friday off; I presume that's for people who travel, and I guess some folks do still fast or do other things on that day. (We're a state school, so it's unusual to have a midsemester religious holiday off, and yes, in the fall I try very hard not to schedule things on the Jewish High Holy Days, and if I messed up and did and someone asked me about it, I'd obviously grant a make-up or extension for anything that might be due. Same for Eid Al-Fit'r. (And the same for other holidays for other faiths or cultures, if they were important ones. I only really know the Abrahamic faiths' ones)

We have a Maundy Thursday service, typically it's short and solemn. (And yes, I go. Those kind of waypoints in the year are important to me)

* And tomorrow is April Fool's Day. The good news is I won't be interacting much with people (Well, it's Knit Zoom day but the people there wouldn't do mean pranks). I've occasionally wound up the butt of pranks so I have to remind myself to be cautious on this day and not react to anything (even things that don't SEEM hinky on the surface). 

I dunno. I like the silly stuff - someone I follow on Twitter posted a "prank" their kid set up, basically making the toilet have  a goofy face (TP roll eyes, an empty roll stuck between the seat and lid to look like a cigar in a mouth) and those kinds of things are good pranks because they don't hurt anyone's feelings, and they're just silly. But I don't like the ones that are "punching down," and a lot of times making someone like me feel like a butt kind of is punching down.