Or a musical and a play, if you’re being pedantic.
But, yes! I finally got to see the touring production of The Lion King, and I went to see Kiss of the Spider Woman, the play I assigned to my students this semester.
Continue reading “It’s Monday & I saw two plays this past weekend”
I’m blaming both the fact that my flight home last Thursday (Jan. 5) was delayed and that my stupid job had our stupid FLEX (professional development) day on January 6. (Can you tell I’m still salty about it?) Ever since I have worked at this school–this is my sixth year–the FLEX day has been in March, after school has already started. March! So when I made my travel plans, it didn’t even register that they had moved it, and I didn’t even realize it was the Friday BEFORE the semester began until the last week of class when they sent out the registration link. I have been teaching a very long time, and I would never (never) book a flight that got in the night before I had to be at work first thing in the morning. UGH.
Anyway, I missed the first session of the day because I was too exhausted to get up, the guy leading the second session went over FIFTEEN MINUTES into LUNCH TIME (like, sir, are you kidding me? I had to raise my hand and let him know because he was gearing up to keep going. I seriously do not believe he would have stopped if I hadn’t called him on it) and then had the absolute audacity to say he was going to start the second session “promptly at 1.” That barely gave us enough time to collect and eat our lunch, so I was late getting back because, of course, I had to use the restroom. Then he went over the end of the session which made me late for the next one. The only reason I didn’t just up and leave both times is that he was doing the EEO (equal employment opportunity) hiring training, so I figured whatever he was saying was important.
I spent all day Sunday rushing to get my classes planned and published (the goal was for the first two weeks for all of them to be up and running in the learning managing system). I was on time to my first class on Monday but the door was locked, and I thought I didn’t have my key (I did) so got started late. The same thing happened on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I got to therapy early but the parking garage was weirdly full so getting parking was a challenge so I wound up being late for that. I then had to rush to get to my class because of the travel time between the therapist’s office and my home and lunch and work. Thursday was fine, but I found out I had to go into work on Saturday (SATURDAY, sigh) for a job fair because I’m on the hiring committee (see above re: EEO training). I was on time to that, but late to church yesterday, so, basically, you know, who has two thumbs and needs a three-day weekend?
Sigh.
Anyway, here’s what I read since my last post:
Continue reading “It’s Monday and I have been behind for over a week”A new day, a new Month of Faves topic. Join in! Topics are at Kimberly’s Instagram.
⭐ DEC 11 – Favorite Things [Daily Life Edition]
(Recipes tried, happy moments, shows watched, skills learned, or just 5 things you appreciated about 2020)
Welp, I guess today is the day I tell you everything I ate during quarantine.
Continue reading “#AMonthofFaves 2021 Favorites” I mean, seriously, where? I ended my last post by saying I hoped to update more often and then somehow did not. I guess I just got in the weeds at work and busy re-acclimating to being back home and then just wound up not posting. I also hate starting posts by talking about how I meant to post but dropped the ball, but I really did keep meaning to post and somehow…didn’t.
Anyway, so here we are. A list to catch up (sort of):
1. I do have a voting story, which I plan to share one day. The short of it is “do not forward your mail if you leave town in the month before an election.” The long of it is a blog post I hope to write someday. I hope I can remember all the details.
2. So, yeah, how about that election, huh? Whew.
3. Also, as mentioned in my previous post, my daughter’s friend is staying with us now and will probably be doing so at least through the new year. My daughter is thrilled because she has always wanted a sibling and now the house isn’t so lonely during the pandemic. I affectionately refer to both of them as “The Twins” since they’re the same age (e.g., The twins went to the boba shop or The twins are watching a movie).
Okay, I’m going to get into the ashy eye story in a minute, but also I just want you to know that I got a COVID test after flying across the country, and it is negative. So…whew.
But, yes, I have an ashy eye.
So I discovered this ashy eye issue the day I was packing/prepping to fly across the country. My eye had been bothering me since Thursday. It kept watering for no reason, which honestly happens to me quite a bit, but I thought it was just allergies. You know, a fire was raging, and debris was flying through the air, so it seemed logical. But that night I couldn’t sleep with my eye mask on because it felt like something was stabbing me in the eye.
Then, on Friday, my eye was still bothering me. It was still with the leaking and all, but I could smell smoke in my house, so, again, I just banked on allergies. Also, my daughter told me I looked like I had gotten punched in the eye because my eye was swollen. “Yes,” I told her. “It’s the allergies.”
Continue reading “It’s Wednesday & I have an ashy eye”No joke. I submitted grades on Saturday for the end of our spring semester. I was doing prep for my summer class that starts Wednesday, and I could not figure out what I had done in the class before. Or what I was planning to do. What are assignments? How does one organize a class? Part of it is that I’m teaching the class online for the first time. But the other part was that my brain was seriously just like, “I don’t know, man. You tell me.”
I said to my daughter OUT LOUD, “I am a terrible teacher who doesn’t know how to teach.”
Continue reading “It’s Monday & I’ve Forgotten How to Teach #IMWAYR”
That’s right: It’s a hybrid post. What I thought was motion sickness today was really just a migraine set up, so I don’t have it in me to write two separate posts. If you’re just here for the A to Z stuff, it’s at the end, so you can scroll scroll scroll.
Last week was spring break, praise the Lord. I took the entire week off from work: no grading, no emails, no course prep, nothing. It was nice. I spent two days doing some deep reading–in part because I had to limit my screen time, but also because I just wanted to read. The motion sickness/migraine madness meant I unfortunately couldn’t catch up on blogs like I wanted to. However, I did manage to watch Parasite, which broke my brain, and I also started a rewatch of The Bernie Mac Show (both are on Hulu), which is bringing me so much joy. I mean, honestly, there are not enough BMS gifs out there and my heart, it weeps.
WEEPS.
Continue reading “It’s Monday and P is for Psychotherapy! #IMWAYR #AtoZChallenge”
I was still in the throes of wrapping up my semester Monday and then I spent all day today traveling, so I’m coming to this one a little late. It’s a combo Month of Faves / It’s Monday (Tuesday)! What Are You Reading? post.
Mon. | Dec 16 – #AMonthofFaves Winter Reading – Your fave reads from last Winter, or seasonal reads you love, or books on this year’s winter reading list.
I’m going to focus on the books I plan to read over winter break (the next two weeks!). There are three of them, though I may, of course, finish more.
Today’s prompt is underrated books, and both of my books are by the same author, so you know that means you should (a) read both immediately and then (b) check out more of her books.
And by her, I mean Jaclyn Moriarty, of course.
I have talked up her Colors of Madeleine trilogy (read it!) and Feeling Sorry for Celia (read it!), but she published two (two!) books in the past year (okay, fine, one was last October, but I read it in December, so close enough), and they are both woefully underrated.
Continue reading “#AMonthofFaves Underrated Books aka A Jaclyn Moriarty Appreciation Post”
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Great book. Well-drawn and sympathetic characters…even when I didn’t want them to be.
3/31/16: I got to pick for book club (finally!) and picked this one. I feel the exact same way about the book that I did the first time, so yay for that. These characters break my heart.
View all my reviews
A Tangle of Gold by Jaclyn Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It is really, really, REALLY hard for books or movies or TV shows to surprise me, and this book did. Also, Princess Ko is the absolute best. I 100% love her, and she has entered the pantheon of my favorite female characters, the likes of which include Ella from Ella Enchanted.
Overall, I give the entire series five stars, and The Cracks in the Kingdom is my favorite in the trilogy.
This past month I finished seven books, two of which were rereads and two that fulfilled categories in the Read Harder challenge (book about religion, historical fiction). I’m at 12 books out of 31 for Diversity on the Shelf, which means I still haven’t achieved 50% of the books I’ve read being by or about people of color. I definitely need to do better there. Oh, and Goodreads tells me I am three books ahead of schedule for their reading challenge.
I signed up for the A to Z reading challenge, which means there’s quite a bit of activity here for the next month. Here are the posts I’ve made for the challenge so far:
[wrap-up-posts week=”13″ year=”2016″ category=”Blogging A to Z” listtype=”ul”]
Yep, I’m still making my way through Necessary Endings. I started The Adventures of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks (it started as a webcomic) on the suggestion of a coworker. We were having a prof dev session on building a web presence, and I showed him this blog. Apparently, we read a lot of the same things, so he thought I might like ASG. It’s pretty cute so far, so he wasn’t wrong.
I was traveling this weekend and checked out The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin for my Kindle. I’m only about five or so pages in, so I have no idea how I feel about it quite yet. We’ll see how it goes the rest of the week.
Happy reading, everyone!
The Englishist 