exam week begins

 I gave my first exam today. Graded it and the plant collections. In general I'm pleased but I do see some things I will have to change about the collection for next year - be a lot more insistent, for example, on teaching them HOW to press, I didn't really take the time to do that and I got some awful, crumpled up specimens. 

I did get some knitting on Chalcedony done - probably the most knitting I've done lately has been while invigilating exams. Will do more tomorrow; I give my second exam then.

I was contemplating taking maybe Wednesday and going up to Chickasaw for the day (Friday I give my last exam, Thursday evening I have a thing, Saturday is graduation) but it's supposed to rain Wednesday and Thursday so I guess not. Maybe next week, before I go up to visit my mom.

I do feel like I need to do something to mark the ending of the semester. Going to Chickasaw would be my first choice, though I suppose if it were too rainy for there but not too horrible to drive I could consider going antiquing somewhere. 

I ordered the gift certificate for mother's day for her from Casey's (the local to her greenhouse that she uses). They warned me it would arrive early but I don't really care - if she wants to use it early she can.

I also took a minute to FINALLY call my uncle to thank him for the book about my grandfather- it seemed like when I would think of it it was too late in the evening (he lives in the Eastern time zone; I live in Central) or I was on my way in to class or something. I mentioned that "I didn't really read much of it yet but he doesn't seem to mention the 'flu pandemic" and my uncle said, "Yeah, he does later on say he was hospitalized at least once with it, and had it a couple times, but he really doesn't say much about it" and I wonder if, given the trauma of (a) maybe going off to war, (b) surviving a plane crash and seeing buddies of his die in crashes, and (c) losing several people he cared about/seeing some of his young crushes marry other men just left him unable to react much. Or maybe it was downplayed more back then, because there was just more infectious disease and more people randomly dying of stuff? I don't know.

But he does comment in one of the later chapters about the "old Cy" being "dead," and yeah, I get where he's coming from; I am a very different person than I was before 2019. Not better. I mean, I'm better than I was in the worst of the pandemic but I also don't think whatever "happy go lucky" quality I once had (not much, frankly) is coming back. 

I'm sure part of it is just being tired. Tired from the stress of prepping a new class, and worrying I wasn't doing it well enough, and all that. I had a LOT of bad dreams this semester and I"m sure it was partly stress. 

The thing is? I am not quite sure how to get rid of it - or if it's just something that will take time. All the "self care" garbage they shove at us is either stuff I already do (exercising, eating healthfully, trying to get enough sleep) or stuff I don't have the OPPORTUNITY or money to do ("spa days" or that kind of business). And I don't have a "significant other" to help me.