mostly yays

[lunabee34]

1. The check for the totalled car arrived today and is now nestled in the bank!

2. Man, grading senior level work is hard. LOL I am so used to grading freshman and sophomore work, and it is tedious at times, but it is not particularly mentally taxing. It is such a difference grading majors who are super stoked about the subject matter and interacting with it in complex ways. What a glorious problem to have!

3. Emma had her first race Friday. She did well! I am always so proud of her perseverance; she is never going to win, but she always beats herself. That sounded better in my head. LOL

On the other hand, the race itself was a huge ball of no for me. The only places I'd been between March and August are various doctors with mask mandates and social distancing and immediate temperature checks and etc. My job is doing a great job of socially distancing our classrooms and having a mask mandate, and I can tell all of my students to follow the rules or GTFO. At this race, very few people were wearing masks, and while some people were clustered in family groups, almost nobody was socially distancing. There were two other schools competing, so they were all indiscriminately mingling with our students, and of course none of the runners were wearing masks because I can barely walk across a field in 95 degree weather with a mask on much less run in it. They would all faint. So I spent the entire race doing this bizarre backing away from everyone dance as they encroached on me. I ended up moving at least fifty yards incrementally over the course of the race. And then this lady came over to talk to me, and I genuinely cannot tell if she was being a dick on purpose (I see you are wearing a mask and backing away from everyone; I will make the monkey dance) or just utterly clueless but it was so so so so stressful. I have such a newfound appreciation for Josh's willingness to do all our shopping, especially in early days when places were not mandating masks or even trying to make patrons socially distance.

4. Y'all, my first big meeting as chair of the Important Committee was Friday, and I ran that shit like a boss. I have been so intimidated and worried about my performance in this position, but I am owning it. And now I am officially washing my hands of that fear. I got this. They're gonna write songs about the clarity of my agendas and the glorious brevity of my proposals. Like a haiku, they'll say. So efficient, they'll say. A stapler, hole punch, mechanical pencil, and email notification quartet will provide the orchestral setting for these paeans to my greatness.

5. How does Lovecraft Country continue to be so damn good?



So, the pacing of this show is unreal. I love it. I thought they'd be in this mansion for the whole rest of the season, and that part of the story line is dispensed by the end of the episode. I suspect that the daughter and Eric Northam lite William the Not Butler have survived, and I think it's possible they will be allies of a sort.

Uncle George better not be dead. I'm pretty sure he's Atticus's dad. And even if he's not, he loved Atticus's mom, and I love that he gets to have a genuinely positive hallucinatory experience with her memory. I love that he figures out those bylaws and sticks it to them. As I well know, nothing can defeat Robert's Rules of Order! That whole scene is worth the price of admission; I love William's little smirk like he's on George's side. I love George telling Letty that she's Letitia Fucking Lewis, and nobody can take that from her.

All the stuff with breeding the monsters as guard dogs is beyond horrifying.

The ritual sequence with "Whitey on the Moon" playing over it is amazing. That song. Wow.

I cannot wait to see where this goes next.

Comments

[teaotter]

I'm really hoping George isn't dead. The show is officially ON PAUSE in my head until I find out, because if he's really dead I'm going to be angry about it. But it's the kind of show where he might not be? *fingers crossed*

[lunabee34]

You and me both.

I mean, I will be happy for flashbacks and hallucinations, but I want him to be alive.

[havocthecat]

I read Lovecraft Country and it's a kickass book, but it's on a pay channel and I have to wait to see it until it's out on DVD.

[lunabee34]

I want to read the book next. I bet it's amazing.

[princessofgeeks]

\o/

I have spent a decade teaching English to all freshman after an earlier decade teaching journalism to journalism majors. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which is actually MORE FUN.

HUGSES on your committee work. I so get that.

[lunabee34]

*muses*

Now which could that be? LOL

Let me know if you're up to a chat at some point this week. :)

[princessofgeeks]

yes, any night after 6 is fine.

[lunabee34]

What about Thursday at 7 Eastern? I think that would be 6 your time?

[princessofgeeks]

yes that would be great

[gloss]

So psyched about you pwning the committee leadership! <333

[lunabee34]

*high five*

[timespirt]

Some people really don't get the mask thing. I took my bottles back today and I was by my car and heard some guy screaming at the top of his lungs. I thought he was yelling at one of the workers for the grocery store to find out he was yelling at some guy in the bottle room not wearing a mask. I was seriously waiting for fists to fly. I go nowhere without my mask.

"HUGS"

[lunabee34]

Me either.

I even put extras in the cars in case I forgot when I go somewhere so I'll always have one.

[timespirt]

I have a bunch in the glove box.

[torachan]

Ughhhhhhh to all the people not taking covid seriously. :(

But yay for insurance money!

[lunabee34]

It's nice to have that piece of the whole debacle put to bed.

[china_shop]

Y'all, my first big meeting as chair of the Important Committee was Friday, and I ran that shit like a boss.

You rockstar! *\o/*

Sorry about the stress (and potential danger) of people not being careful or respecting your boundaries, ughhhh! *hugs and hugs*

P.S. What genre is Lovecraft Country? Is it something you'd rec to me, do you think?

[lunabee34]

Lovecraft Country is horror and sci-fi. It's also a family drama.

It is pretty violent, and it is about racial violence.

I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to watch it, but it ended up being okay for me to watch at least in these first couple of episodes for a specific reason. I can spoil you if you like.

[china_shop]

I think I'll give it a cautious try unspoiled and see how I go. Thanks! <3

[lunabee34]

Let me know what you think! And don't forget that it is violent! And upsetting!

[amejisuto]

Sounds like you mostly had a good week so far, with the exemption of Plague Karen trying to talk to you. If you go to any more of Emma's races I'd wear a shirt, Stay Back Unless You Have a Mask. Can't be too expensive to have one made up.

[lunabee34]

Ha! That's exactly what I need. A get away from me garment. :)

[kass]

Ugh so sorry about people not respecting social distancing.

But go you for running that meeting like a boss!

[lunabee34]

Thank you!

And I am cautiously optimistic that maybe my committee won't have a great big charge this year? I haven't been given one yet. *crosses fingers*

[oracne]

GO CHAIRPERSON!!!

And the maskless and creeper-uppers make me INSANE. So stressful.

[lunabee34]

It is so stressful. Josh has really insulated me from a lot of how stressful it can be. I'm grateful for that.

[corvidology]

They're gonna write songs about the clarity of my agendas and the glorious brevity of my proposals. Like a haiku, they'll say. So efficient, they'll say. A stapler, hole punch, mechanical pencil, and email notification quartet will provide the orchestral setting for these paeans to my greatness.

I would be happy to compose this for anyone I work with who could manage it. :D

[lunabee34]

I figure there's got to be a niche market for this kind of work, like cards that say stuff like

"Congratulations on cutting off Dr. X before he could mention his latest publication in an unrelated context"

or

"My condolences on the necessity of the formation of two sub-committees."

[corvidology]

I would like to apologize for you being appointed to three committees and a grant writing panel when you were unable to make last week's department meeting.

[lunabee34]

*dies*

I have actually been in a committee meeting where this happened. It was the first meeting, and no one wanted to be chair-elect, and someone just nominated the one person who was absent, so they had to be chair the next year. LOL

[executrix]

I have seen speculation that William Shatner's wigs could be explained by Wardrobe giving them out on a first-come first-served basis and he always was the last to arrive on set, so a similar mechanism could work in the academic context as well.

[lunabee34]

*dies laughing*

I definitely think that's what was at work in this case. LOL I don't remember if the absent person was mad about it, but I bet they were.

[executrix]

Seldom can education have such immediate practical consequences.

[corvidology]

An early mentor warned me to NEVER miss the first three meetings of any committee I was on for this very reason, unless I was dying... and even then I should consider rising from my death bed.

[lunabee34]

That was a wise, wise mentor.

[lyr]

Mostly yay, especially for #4! You go!

[lunabee34]

*high five*

[chelseagirl]

So glad classes and committees are going well. We go back next Tuesday -- usually we wait til after Labor Day but it's so late this year that we'd have finals running into Christmas, so . . .

Can your students understand you with your mask on? And are the classes all F2F? We're nervous about "converged learning" for so many reasons and whether the kids at home will be able to understand us while we're wearing masks is a big part of that. We have trainings on the equipment and one woman who's been already has raised some serious doubts -- another woman was going in later yesterday afternoon and my training is on Thursday and the head of FYW is still threatening to pull the plug on converged if all of us have problems being understood.

[lunabee34]

I am teaching a mixture of face-to-face and online.

My students face-to-face have no trouble hearing me through a mask; I have trouble understanding some of them, though. They don't project and they speak too fast and mumble, and a mask makes that hell to understand in some of them.

Any video-ing I am doing is at home in front of my computer with no mask on. I haven't done any video with me wearing a mask, so I have no idea how that would be.

In my experience though, if you have your teacher voice on and are projecting like we do, I don't think you'd have trouble being heard on a video.

I hope it works for you.

[independence1776]

Congrats on #4!

[lunabee34]

Thank you!

[kat_lair]

Yes! Committee Queen, all shall bow and revel in your glory!

[lunabee34]

Indeed.

[spikedluv]

Yay, check!

I'm glad that you're finding the grading more challenging and interesting.

Ugh, people! I get mad when people go the wrong way down the aisles or wear their masks below their nose. But I'm usually too chicken to say anything.

W00t! Congrats on your first committee meeting as chair going so well! I'm glad you're feeling more confident about it and that there will be songs. *g*

[lunabee34]

It is way more interesting and unfortunately time consuming. LOL But I shall prevail. :)

[nyctanthes]

It is so satisfying to run meetings well. And hard to do. Congratulations!

People are The Dumb about social distancing. It's maddening.

[lunabee34]

*takes a bow*