Ah patience…I have so little of it at the moment. Probably related to sleep too. Each night it’s easier to fall asleep and stay there…mostly from exhaustion, I think. Better than the insomnia of earlier this week…or the crazy nightmares. Although watching Stranger Things and Fortitude before bed might not be the best choices. They definitely show up in the night.
Yesterday’s professional development could have been done on our own…seriously. Did not need help with that. Annoying. Plus I spent 20 minutes on our spy program (we can watch what the kids are doing on their computers) trying to get one class back on task. The class that had a guest teacher in there. A teacher who was supposed to be keeping them on task, off games and YouTube videos. So we’re gonna have a discussion today of job skills. How is what you did yesterday with the guest teacher in here gonna look on your resume? How will you explain your behavior to your boss? We’ll see how that goes. Sigh. Double sigh. Don’t pull me out of my class for stuff I can do on my own. I’m still irritated by the conversations we were having. I think people who aren’t in the classroom have no idea what some of us talk about all the time to our students.
ANYWAY. It’s not a shocker that certain parts of my job annoy me. I loved Tuesday when kids were first googling things like plasma and chemical reaction. I had interest then. Hopefully that will continue through all the labs etc. Enough for them to question what’s happening and try to figure out answers to problems.
I’m back in a routine of coming home, petting all the furry things, reading for a bit if there’s time (I’m trying to make time. I like to read.) or racing to exercise. Then dinner, whether I’m the cook or recipient…a bit of stitching after eating…and then art of some sort. I realize I will soon have to do some actual schoolwork during that time. I’m avoiding it this week. Seriously avoiding it. For as long as possible.
Routines are good for some things…they’re how I get art made almost every night. My brain is trained for that after-dinner thought…what am I gonna work on tonight? Now because I’m getting a little more tired every night, that gets harder as the week goes on. Last night, I was zoning out way too much…I didn’t start art until pretty late. But I started.
I did work on this after dinner…finished Want and started that giant J.
More subtle herringbone. This one is so much easier to sew. I wish I’d started with it…I wouldn’t have procrastinated so much.
I had couch companions…
That kept changing…that one really wanted to be ON me, but 20 minutes of gentle persuasion put him over there. After he scared off all the dogs. Smallest animal in the house. Mostly benign, unless you’re prepping food in the kitchen. Then he’s like a food-seeking missile. Annoying.
More slow drawing. I’m at the need-to-enlarge stage. Guess I’ll toss it in the car and see if I can find time for that after school.
I’m having fun with the background I think. The non-human parts. There will be more…not a lot more…but a bit on either side, I think, and more up top. Enough to fit in a quote and some space stuff. Have you seen the new pictures of Jupiter? Pretty awesome stuff. Maybe this needs a Jupiter. A new discovery of something that’s been there all along. Definitely a sun and some stars. Yes, it’s a quilt about a kid who had scoliosis surgery, about all the metal in her spine now…but it’s also just about being in the world, being a part of it. The mom made a comment to me early on about how 100 years ago, her daughter would probably have been in a wheelchair…and this surgery allows her to do more of what she wants. Plus she got taller! I should figure out how to add that. I would love to get taller all of a sudden. I’d probably bump into things even more than I already do. Anyway…I wanted there to be a lot of joy in existence in this piece. Not heavy…but joy. Trying to get there. I’m actually considering redoing the head on the right. We’ll see. It’s bugging me, so I will probably have to do that.
Anyway, I can’t do that until I go to school for an early meeting today and then get through all the discovery stuff in classes and who knows what else is on my to-do list. I’m back to 4 or 5 reminder lists and calendars to make sure everything gets done daily. I just typed “enlarge dwg” on my calendar and it autocorrected to “enlarge dog”. I don’t need to enlarge the freakin’ dog. Then the kids come back tonight, although I won’t see them until tomorrow. Hopefully they had fun. One leaves next week and one the following week. I do miss them this week, even though the stress levels go up and at least one is cranky on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s me!
OK, early meeting. Prep for lab. School brain in place. Art brain go sit in a corner and ruminate for a while. You can come out later.
*Beck, The New Pollution
Kathy Nida 