Oy. Friday the 13th, you say? Full moon in two days? Middle school? You know what I should do? Be at a school-planned literacy training all day and not in the classroom. I mean, I’ve dealt with a fight this week, a kid saying the sub is a bigger bitch than me (ha! That’s funny…I think she’s the sweetest person ever), multiple meetings with adults that shouldn’t have needed to happen. Sometimes I wish I could just go to school and teach the things and never deal with all the crap (that is NOT what happens). I wrote sub plans and rewrote them, taking out the ‘good luck’ and ‘I’ll pray for you’ (I don’t pray, by the way). It’ll be fine. Next Friday, now that would be a shitty day for her. This Friday is only an unlucky number. It’s not usually a hard day for me…but there are things that will make it harder today. So I’m wearing my new super comfy sweats and bringing my book (which is really good so far, so I’d really just rather read it than do anything else). And I’m mostly hanging out with my peeps. Let’s hope it goes OK.
Artwise, it’s been a shit two days, which might be contributing to my mood, honestly. I needed to find, clean up, iron, and ship a quilt, so I did that Wednesday night…it took a while, so I got no ironing in.
I did get judged by my cat for not petting her more…
It’s getting harder to get her to come out of the batting cave for her meds and food…
I mean, I get it. Batting cave is warm. House is not.
Then last night, I stitched with friends and finished stitching down (not embellishment) of the March mushroom blocks (Sue Spargo’s Truffle Duffel or however she spells it).
They will look totally different once they are embellished, but at the moment, about all I can handle is stitching things down. Embellishment seems like a lot for my tired brain. This has a sense of doneness and achievement that helps, but is not too onerous.
These seem good goals for the day.
Probably unrealistic, but it’s a start.
Everyone still says I sound like I’m sick (I do!), but I am getting better. Antibiotics are finally kicking in. So. Yeah. Goals for today: lots of tea, getting shit done in the planning realm, NOT picking a fight about science curriculum (I’m not aiming for that…there’s someone else who might be), getting through it all so I can come home, read my book, eat leftover spaghetti, and iron fabric. SLEEP. That sounds lovely. Tomorrow is not a school day. Also lovely.
The alarm went off. In my dream, I was measuring out spaces for desks, but someone had moved my classroom outside, on cobblestones outside some very old (read, not found in California) building. There were sea lions nearby and a million places for kids to disappear into and a billion things for them to be distracted by, plus they were all coming from different places and we had to find room for all their luggage. Teacher dreams, man. Oh yeah, the desks had to be 6 feet apart, but ALL the school was outside, so I could only have this square of cobblestones and all the desks had to fit in that space. Ironically, I never had to do this last year, because I was in the hell they call Zoom classes, where all the desks are far apart or nonexistent and all the children are distracted.
So many levels of weirdass trauma with this pandemic.
Anyway, my weekend was busy, but I did finish all my progress report grades, although sometimes I wonder what I’m teaching and whether I’m effective or not…
Sixth metal? I’m hoping. Although I still don’t know what he’s talking about. Welcome to my world. The assignment I thought was so easy last week was apparently more confusing than I thought. Ah well. So be it. One of the wonders of teaching a school that is 90% or more English language learners.
So what else went on? Well, I traced a lot…over three hours on Saturday night…
We went to a friend’s birthday party early in the evening, and then the man watched his show and I listened to mine. When I’m tracing, I really need something that is mostly listening, not much watching.
No closed captioning, no foreign language, no action without words. Last night, I only got a little over an hour in…more like normal.
I am a quarter of the way through, but as I was tracing last night, I found a whole section I hadn’t numbered, so now, instead of 1329 pieces, I think there are 1372. Stay tuned for more brain farts.
This weekend was also the start of the Surface Design Association online conference, which I signed up for, and happily listened (and watched) to many artists talk about their work, one while driving to pilates, another while finishing grades, and one while prepping lunches. I miss most of it this week, because it’s all during school hours, but they will be recorded. And Saturday morning will be another batch of webinars I can listen to in real time. Not ideal, but doable. When I wasn’t grading or cooking, I was doing the brainless stuff I can handle at the moment…tracing stuff for blocks of the month, which keep me occupied when I don’t have the strength or energy to stand and trace.
That’s all freezer paper for a block of the month on mushrooms. I’m fully a year behind and totally OK with that. It’s a time filler. I don’t make art every hour of the day. My brain needs a break from ALL the things. Hence working on this in the evenings…
Still not done with the 3rd version of the flowers. Time-fucking-consuming. But relaxing as well. Do this stitch over and over again on 4 flowers. Then do the next stitch.
I also worked on this a little bit…a different part of my brain.
Look at the pile of fabrics provided. What do you see? How do they all go together? She needs an eye and IDK what else. More flowers. Perhaps that is a hat and not hair, and she still needs hair. A bird on her head maybe. I think they’re all facing one direction though. We’ll see. This one is different than the other ones…an entire scene instead of just a woman. Interesting.
I didn’t go to Road to California, but one of my quilts did…the left one in that block of five.
I also had a meeting of one of my art groups (on Zoom). I miss that group in person, but it was a really long meeting too. We juried new members in, so I had spent time earlier in the weekend reviewing their work and their statements and taking notes. Usually we jury just from work, but it was nice to hear them talk about their practice. Definitely a plus.
I have another art meeting (on Zoom) on Wednesday. Busy week. Long week. We’re back to 5 days of school finally. I’m just so tired all the time. I go to bed earlier than I used to, per doctor’s orders, but I don’t seem to sleep well…probably because I’m rearranging desks on cobblestones. YES, I know it sounds like rearranging chairs on the Titanic. Fully Fucking Aware of that. It’s fine. This week in science is demos and labs and rock stars. It all makes sense. Art is oil pastels. Hearing that I might have to continue to teach an elective next year…I wish I had one that was less labor- and brain-intensive. Art is hard. Teaching art is harder. I’m not sure I’m cut out for it. It’s not like teaching anything is particularly easy, but there’s this sense of talent/skill that plays in art and I just don’t have the energy for dealing with fixed mindset and art for only one period. If I didn’t have to do science as well? Maybe. We have an art teacher though and I don’t want to be her. Anyway. I get no choices on these things.
Yeah. That. You can’t tell that’s what I’m thinking because my mask is on. OK. Gotta go to school with pennies and magnets (lab!) and hopefully grade a bunch of things about balloons that don’t talk about sexy metals, and then meet with my team about field trips (what??? Finally!), and then come home and do more of that tracing thing. Plus bingewatch that show I’m listening to, because it disappears on January 31 and that isn’t that far away. Plus get enough sleep and exercise. Got it.
Kathy Nida 