2/27: writing
...a bureaucratic document over breakfast. I learned last week that I needed to do it by the end of the day tomorrow, and I almost forgot! (Such has been the busy-ness of the week.) But once I remembered, the words came more quickly than I thought they would, and some work I had previously done came in handy.
2/26: time to walk
...across campus. It wasn't a long distance, but I've been so busy and so sick that walking outside at all hasn't been possible in a regular way for over a month. So today's walk (or "stroll"?) in nice weather was very welcome.
2/25: some relief
...from pain. By the end of my teaching day, I was really hurting. It took hours for the medicine to help, but it finally kicked in. And I can go to bed feeling better.
2/24: morning/afternoon coincidence
When I smelled the winter honeysuckle this morning, I thought of a former student because my winter honeysuckle pamphlet had made him laugh (in a good way). When I got home in the afternoon, a letter from him was waiting for me in the mail!
He has moved. I knew his old apartment because a college friend used to live in the same neighborhood; turns out, the same college friend also used to live in his new town. Not a profound coincidence, but still a secondary serendipity. I'll take it as a sign that sometimes the pieces of my world click together.
2/22: grabbing minutes
...in which I could somehow distract my mind from thinking about bad things at work. There were plenty of minutes--and hours--today when I had to think about those bad things and deal with them. But reading a novel for a while and writing some recommendations for really nice students were reprieves.
2/20: discussing
Briton Riviere's painting of Athena with Eumaeus' dogs (link here) in the Myth class today. It's the first time I've used this painting in class, and it was fun to hear the students' thoughts about it.
2/19: a snow day
Though we didn't get as much snow as expected, what we did get was more ice than snow, and school was called off. It was a good timing, as I felt under-the-weather for most of the day--my cold just won't go decisively away. So I did some work but also some resting, and hopefully I'll make it through tomorrow smoothly.
2/18: postal serendipity
I put an envelope to my aunt in the mailbox this morning. I found an envelope from my aunt in the mailbox this afternoon.
2/17: blood orange juice
...freshly squeezed and added to tonic water. I look forward to blood orange season every year!
2/16: taking advantage
...of the fact that there are no classes tomorrow. I bought a bigger selection of crayons so that I'd have more greens. (I remember when the 64-count box of Crayolas was a big deal. Now I could get 152!) And I made some more scribble books while continuing to listen to David Byrne (post-Talking Heads) albums.
2/15: listening
...to Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, a Brian Eno / David Byrne collaboration.
2/14: making
...little scribble books using the meander format. It's something I'd been working toward for over a month now, but today things clicked. And the first one I made was a valentine for Chris.
2/12: making
...a meander book, then adding a flowing line and some words from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura. It was an experiment to see if it would be feasible as a possible workshop on campus, and I think it might be.
2/11: talking with the students
...in the Myth class about the double simile that describes the gouging of Polyphemus' eye in the Odyssey.
2/9: peeling
...off a post-it note that's been on the armrest of my chair for almost a month. It was a reminder to order some postcard prints. I had been weirdly blocked (self-conscious and more?), but I got things ready last night and this morning uploaded the order. My armrest is, for now, post-it free.
2/8: taking a walk
...for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. This has been a bad cold, and I think I may have turned the corner toward recovering now (knock on wood).
2/7: happening to catch
...the NPR short audio documentary about Margery Kemp on my drive home this afternoon (link here). I liked the way it was done.
2/6: using
...the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to find a webpage that I wanted to show my students but that has gone offline.
2/5: a smoother day
...than yesterday. Yesterday wasn't bad, but Tuesdays are my busiest teaching day of the week, and yesterday I was feeling very hot-and-cold from my lingering illness, which made the day more taxing. On top of that, I encountered some issues with students using AI, and that made me fret into the night. But this morning I found a way out of the AI issue, my Latin class was nice, and my office-hour conversations with students were good.
2/3: starting the day
...with music. As I was drinking my coffee, I looked at the list of Grammy winners, and the title of one album caught my eye: Rectangles and Circumstance by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion. I found the title track online and listened to it, and then listened to the rest of the album as I was getting ready for work.
2/1: fixing
...some chili I made last week. It was too spicy to eat! Today I made another batch, but without seasoning, and mixed it with the old batch. Now we have eatable meals for the week ahead.
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