I remember a school teacher friend in YS announcing that they would be turning off their morning alarm for the next three months. I won't--I'll still wake up at 4:30/5:00 alarm or no, but counting my sabbatical and summer, I won't be in a classroom until September of 2022.
And of course, all that self-congratulation aside, I know I will miss the high of being in the classroom. My students did SUCH MAGNIFICENT work on their WGS symposium work today and everyone who visited loved it too. And there were student visitors who were disappointed that the course wouldn't be offered next term and their interest made me sad I wasn't going to be teaching next term...
So... you know, like the date, the day went both ways.
And apparently, we're in for a week+ stretch of palindrome days.
But I'm not gonna lie--the day was glorious. It's been SO LONG since I had the house to myself and though it was mostly grading and work and meetings and LORs, it felt luxurious.
It's in the details and small tweaks to the day... like planning to have lox for dinner with Nu. Somehow it's Big A with his Jewish heritage who can't stand lox, while Nu and I LOVE it.
Speaking of my human kids--it's difficult parenting one at a time. Kind of lonely, actually. I had eight years with At before Nu came along, and now that At is 22 and in his own place, I get these years to focus fully on Nu. I keep telling myself this, but both Nu and I miss At and I don't think Nu likes being the sole focus. Ha.
At least the puppy kids are accommodating and making pillow forts forever.
They found this particular style by googling "emo boy hair." I think Nu makes it look great! Big A took them to the Aveda Salon--I bristled at that since I go to Supercuts.
But I had a long day at work, and Big A took care of Nu's salon trip, and eyeglasses prescription, and picked up Subway for dinner. So it's all good.
Big A starts a new job tomorrow--it's not as far away as Texas as I feared, but still a pretty long commute.
Later, we packed up the grandparents with snacks, cider, and one of the flower arrangements from yesterday's table, and waved our goodbyes as they headed back to Ohio.
Then a long soak with Big A, a great heart-to-heart with Nu, + snacks + old sitcoms + naps.
It was the perfect chaser to yesterday.
I'm thankful this isn't last year.
But as a colleague's tweet reminds me, some of that is just my/our ennui and exhaustion with the pandemic and things aren't really going so well.
Our state leads the nation in new cases and the lede photo for this NYT article, about the morphing re-formations of the pandemic, is from our local hospital system.
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving... all the students who were going to come to class came; some no shows--but many of them sent me an email beforehand. I find these last weeks so fulfilling as students work the lessons and discussions of term into building their own research projects.
There was no one in the English Bay after I was done with classes, and I got noisy moving furniture around in my conference corner, cleaning, tidying, decluttering and making sure my plants would have enough to drink over the break.
Strange to think we'll be off for almost a whole week.
And then suddenly term will be over.
Just like that.
hollows show with stars in sequence all these years paralyzed only by the possibility of time... if this world were mine * we'd follow ...
