And it's Thursday

**ETA: late this afternoon I got an e-mail (saw it on my phone) telling me I absolutely should NOT have used my computer, and should not use it again before they install more security software. They say I didn't "damage" anything by logging in but it's something very upsetting to my particular brainwiring to be told "oh that information you acted on? you actually did the wrong thing" because even though I had NO way of knowing, it makes me feel like I'm a bad person and makes me feel guilty.

Monday is not going to be happy or fun and I am bracing for lots of upset students, some of whom will direct their anger at me because I'm the closest target. 

 

Yesterday was a solid six hours of meetings (and very little said about the Thing most faculty were most worried about). 

As it turns out : my work computer IS okay, I booted up and logged in yesterday afternoon. I don't have the blue "infected" marker on it, but neither do I have the white "clean" marker, so I was apprehensive, but my chair said "if it's infected, you'll know - as soon as you log in it'll give you a screen demanding [something I will redact here because it's an ongoing case]"

I didn't get that. Only faculty in the department and it may be my sheer anility as an "old" computer user that saved me; I do a full shutdown  (like: click the "shut down" choice, not "sleep") at the end of each workday, and I did that Wednesday before the breach and didn't try to log on Thursday until AFTER we'd been separated from the Internet. 

But - most of the classroom computers are "bad." The smartboards are mostly okay, it sounds like, and we can operate from a flashdrive plugged directly into the board and bypass the computer. 

I decided to be EXTRA cautious and buy a relatively cheap flashdrive that I will regard as disposable and MAYBE won't plug into my office or home computer after the first few days' use, and just download what I need onto it before I ever use it in a smartboard.

So I ran out again to Mart of Wal. It kind of sucks to have to go there, and also have to go to a gigantic store for one simple specialty thing (also, it's all the way across town from me), but my local downtown and environs are so hollowed out now that there really isn't anywhere else to buy one (There's a computer REPAIR place, but they're as far as walmart, they don't open until 11, and I have no guarantee they actually sell things like flashdrives.)

But oh well

 If I had more energy I'd rotate that. I didn't want to carry it on my keyring (too much stuff already) and I found this lanyard that was a reward from a long-ago Patreon. Except the clip is too big for the little opening, so I had to scrounge a safety pin to connect the two.

 STORY OF MY LIFE. everything is a kludge, everything is suboptimal, everything is held together with baling wire and duct tape and it does bother me on a deep level. But that's how life is now and I feel lucky I could even GET the drive.

I think this morning is going to be downloading everything I can think of needing for the first month onto it, seeing as I might not want to remount it into my computer(s)  in case there's infection somewhere.

 Yes, this reminds me of freaking 2020 though this time I'm not the one who might die but my computers are.

So yeah, I'm just pretty worn out right now; this has been a hard week so far. It's also INCREDIBLY hot and the custodian warned me that two of the lab rooms (where the AC is broken) are at 94 degrees F. Fortunately I don't teach there; I'm not sure what the classes scheduled for there will do.

It feels like literally everything is broken and nothing is good, and it's making me despair a little, I keep looking for concrete good news but all I can find are things like that human interest story about the little elephant in a zoo whose mom rejected her so keepers tried to raise her until she got a little older, and then finally got accepted by "aunties" (older female elephants, maybe her mother's sisters but not necessarily). But I really feel like I need something good that directly touches MY life, but maybe that's too much to ask for....