Life in late capitalism can be vexing, alienating, fragmenting, and otherwise frustrating. There are many wonderful things in my life, but I'm more likely to talk about what's bad rather than what's good. I'm going to try to post one good thing here each day, and if you would join in by adding a good thing from your day in the comments, I'd love it--I'd absolutely love it. --RR
10/31: hearing people
...at my "Origami, Etymology, and Bats" workshop be excited about words and word histories.
10/30: getting some reassurance
...about my eye. I had a sudden PVD (posterior vitreous detachment) episode during my afternoon class yesterday, and I got an emergency appointment today to have it looked at. Right now it doesn't seem like it's connected to anything worse (like a tear), but I'll have a follow-up in a few weeks. In the meanwhile, it's quite an adjustment to get used to disrupted vision, as if I'm looking through a dirty window all the time. Still, I'm grateful that it's only that adjustment that I'm needing to deal with.
10/29: showing
...my pamphlets to the students in a letterpress class at work. They were so amazingly nice and thoughtful.
10/28: writing
...a quick postcard reply to a friend who had asked me what I've been reading recently.
10/27: finally
....writing a recommendation letter for an excellent former student. There was nothing about the task itself that made me put it off until near the due-date, just busy-ness with other things with closer due-dates. But I wanted to get it submitted before the end of the weekend, so I sat down after dinner and did it. It was good to have some dedicated time to remember this student and all her wonderful work.
10/25: writing
...an unpleasant letter that I wasn't expecting to have to write. Not a good thing, but getting it done before I go to bed is. Now it's not something to wake up to.
And other folks writing in support of what I wrote about in the unpleasant letter.
10/24: enjoying thoughts
...as I prepared for my upper-level Latin class, and again enjoying thoughts--my own, my students', ours together--as I taught the class.
10/22: being
...a little loopy in Beginning Latin (and I think the students actually enjoyed that?).
10/21: sending
...the difficult documents (mentioned yesterday) by email this afternoon, a few hours earlier than I expected. It was good to make myself send them so that I wouldn't keep fussing over them.
Also, on a more wholly happy note, I got some origami bats ready for Halloween mailing.
10/20: writing
...difficult documents in support of the Classics program at the college where I work. That I had to write them at all (and especially over what was supposed to be a break) isn't a great thing, but it's good to have them done and nearly ready to send tomorrow.
10/19: a good round
...of flashcard-making from my students. I've been checking them over the past few days, and one student even drew little pictures on many of them to aid memorization!
10/18: seeing
...the comet (though hazily). And remembering that I had seen deer while driving to and from work earlier in the week. I meant to make deer-sighting a good thing then, but I forgot, so better late than never.
10/17: working at home
...because it's fall break. I had hoped to be able to have a day or two of no work at all, but that wasn't in the cards. At least I can work in comfy clothes, with Chris and the cats nearby, and have the chance to mix in a few other things, like a morning walk and an afternoon break to make a peanut butter pie.
10/15: making a poster
...for an event on campus later this month, and finding a really good bat graphic to use.
10/14: chopping
...vegetables for lentil soup. It took time that in some ways I didn't have (or shouldn't have spent in such a way), but I needed to do something like that--not schoolwork, with my hands, and aimed at making dinners easier for a few days.
10/13: the gift of insomnia
...helped me to get my grading done by 8 am this morning. I woke up around 1:45 and couldn't go back to sleep. After trying for over an hour, I got up and got to work. The unexpected early start meant that I had time to fit in a morning walk as well as work on my other tasks (grocering, prepping for tomorrow, doing laundry) without anxiety. But now I am very tired so I am going to bed where (I hope) I won't have insomnia tonight.
10/12: taking quick breaks
...from grading a pile of writing assignments by folding origami bats for Halloween. I'd set myself a goal, knowing that when I reached it I'd get to fold another bat. And it worked nicely as a motivation and reward.
10/11: a trio
A colleague I rarely see came by with apple/honey themed treats.
I offered my Origami + Epic artist's book workshop again, and it went swimmingly.
10/10: some notable things
As part of my lunch break at work I learned how to fold a fairly (for me) elaborate origami tato or envelope. (The video I used is here.)
In my upper-level Latin class, the students did some very good careful analysis of Liz Clarke's graphic novel of Perpetua's prison diary.
I watched the sky go magenta with the Northern Lights, and Chris watched for awhile with me too. I texted my mother (in PA, where they were more visible) and a friend here (whose niece and nephew are visiting, so I thought they might like to see it).
Later, Chris let me know that owls were hooting. He hooted at them, and they hooted back.
Plus I saw a bat.
10/9: talking about age
...in The Titan's Curse in class today. I didn't plan for it to emerge as a theme as much as it did--and I'm glad it did.
10/8: joining
...Chris' tree walk with his students this morning. I didn't mean to. I was walking on campus to put up posters for an event, and I ran into Chris with his group, so I tagged along for a bit since we were going in the same direction.
10/7: enjoying
...reading my students' posts about Riordan's wordcraft in The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters.
10/6: thinking
...about this year's holiday card and working on some possibilities so that I don't get stressed next month when it's time to settle on a choice and order prints.
10/5: returning
...to a "no-schoolwork Saturday." I really needed a break from it today, even though there's more than plenty to do. I walked, collaged, read, watched TV with Chris, listened to an audiobook, and wrote some postcards and notes.
10/4: doing
...my own assignments so that students have examples of responses. This way they get to see one possible way of going about it, and I get to find out what the assignment feels like from the other end. As they worked on their in-class writing today, I enjoyed putting together my sample responses for an assignment due on Monday.
10/3: an email
...from a student who had a very creative idea for participating in my ongoing altering epics project.
10/2: recovering time
...since my school laptop got replaced. Its cursor had started jumping around: I'd be typing a sentence, and then all of a sudden my cursor would be in the middle of a sentence I had already typed 5 lines ago. Everything basically needed to get typed 2 or 3 times, and I needed to do a lot of proofreading to make sure I caught all the glitches. Now that the jumping cursor is no longer part of my life, I'm surprised at how quickly typing goes.
10/1: chatting
...with a student before his quiz and seeing him smile when I mentioned that I went to the same college that his sister is graduating from this year. We had some common ground.