* I got to thinking about how many I need to do more research/scholarly reading, and thought of the idea of what used to be called SSR ("Sustained Silent Reading," which went by other names, but that was what my school called it). This was a feature of primary grades, I remember it even from first grade, where I guess most of the kids knew how to read. You could get a book out of the classroom library or bring one from home or bring a library book you had checked out.
I likely won't stick with it - I know I haven't stuck with other "get more reading done" plans in the past, especially as things get busy and I have evening meetings. But I did it today.
* The rooms seem slightly better. On Wednesday, an early-arriving student helped me rearrange the tables into a better configuration of rows, and they stayed like that, so it's possible only folks from Biology are using this room, or at least the other people teaching in it don't insist on moving the tables back. I mean, I won't be TOO surprised to walk in some day and see them all shoved back into the squares, but at least for now that's easier.
And I got the computer lab reserved for my ecology labs that need it. Things are harder when it's not your own building and you feel like you have to ask permission really nicely for everything (in my building, if you need the computer room, you just check with the secretary to be sure no one else reserved it first)
* I ran to Sherman/Dension yesterday afternoon. I needed some things only the Target has, and some things from Ulta. It wasn't ideal, going after teaching (and after trying to build the little metal table for our drying oven that goes in my "new" lab space) but at least I got those things, and got in one trip to the little yarn shop. (Given all the talk of tariffs, and how companies are going to line up for "consideration" to avoid them, and how I suspect the various suppliers of craft supplies will be left out, I am bracing for yarn to become largely unaffordable to me. I hope I'm wrong. But also, I see now JoAnn's has declared bankruptcy AGAIN and I find myself wondering if everything I value and use here is going to go away, and I'm a little sad)
*These past few years have been a LOT to process. I know I'm still carrying - if it's not too precious to use this word - trauma from the pandemic in 2020 and every headline I hear about H5N1 or the potential erosion of our public-health structure has me worried. I know I really internalized in 2020 that "no one really cares very much about you" because I had very few people checking up on me - there were folks I knew that I literally did not hear from for a year and a half - and when I tried to get in touch with a few folks locally (through texts, mainly) I got brushed off and yeah, I know a lot of people were going through the same difficult things I was, but....it would have helped for someone to have texted back. So I really do figure when bad things happen, I'm on my own to figure it out and survive it, and I don't like that, but I'm also afraid now of being brushed off or rejected if I reach out.
* And yeah, I heard about Georgia no longer selling eggs or poultry products and maybe I comb through my vintage cookbooks for WWII era cakes to be made without eggs, if eggs become hard to find or prohibitively expensive. I remember I made that "wacky cake" (which has no eggs, milk, or butter in it - which also means it's vegan) a couple times in 2020, when things like eggs and sometimes even milk were in short supply. But again, it feels like so many small privations and unpleasantnesses, and there feel like there's not really any compensation for them, and it's hard not to wonder if things will ever be better, or if this is just the start of a long downward spiral.....
Yes, I'm probably overtired and should just go to bed.
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