anagram of brat

Because I do not wish this to be my third consecutive Friday without writing my words (with one bonus missed Sunday, siiiigh)¹, I better get these done before getting *too* cozy on the couch. That way, we know from experience, lies sleepiness.

I rounded out my reasonably good-but-exhausting week with a third day that was good-but-weird. I was worried that I was going to be slightly late to school --I ran into Clayton on the path and we walked the back half together, quickly since we knew we were brushing against our contractual start time. Striding around the corner at 7:47 (two minutes after first bell, but still well before final bell), we were startled to find...everyone. Turns out a fire alarm had gone off right around the time of first bell, and so *no one* got into class before about 8:10. Well then.

A couple hours later, I watched in horror as my clock spontaneously fell off the wall and missed hitting a student on the head by 8-10 inches or so. I think that's when I declared that the day had pretty serious Friday-the-thirteenth vibes, despite being a Friday-the-not.

I was able to finish the day without too many hours of distractions, and determined that I would reward myself for a Productive Week with a trip to Make and Mend to poke around. It's the closest I've ever had two visits there (about two weeks), and I was pleasantly surprised by how much churn had occurred, and how many new things were out. My secret plan to obtain every possible knitting needle is going extremely well.

I walked home while chatting on the phone with Veronica, which meant I got to learn her youngest child has the same favourite dinosaur as me (Triceratops, which I decided was my favourite when I was probably pretty close to the age he is now: almost four). I really appreciate that she has initiated an every-other-week or so Friday afternoon call while she's doing daycare pickup. It's always so good to get to know what's going on in her life!

At home I did some important documentation of knitting supplies (so far I have managed to not duplicate any needle sizes, which is _excellent_) and then sat on the bed and listened to music and worked a bit on some of my projects. Hearing voices downstairs, I went down to hang with Rey and her lovely friend Al, who I'd met a few weeks ago and quite hit it off with.

Now they're off to watch the telly downstairs, and I have, as established at the beginning of this post, curled myself up very comfortably on the couch. I have a warm blanket, I have three different knitting projects in reach, I have good conversations going with my sweeties, all is good!

It's still not guaranteed (my brain has been piss of late), but I'm really hoping I make it out to bells tomorrow, since it's been an age. And then I can spend the rest of the day being lazy and quiet and maybe grading and maybe playing video games and maybe knitting. It's a good plan, bront.

I hope you have good plans for this weekend, be they restful or active.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I don't think I've talked about it. I feel awful. My streak was 1271 days. But right now it is 6 days, and if I finish today it'll be 7, and the way you get to 1271 is by doing 6 or 7 or 8 days in a row, lots of times all strung together. So yeah, "feel awful" but also sanguine.

As a small good thing, I ordered two more skirts from Maya Kern while they were having a sale. I was worried the thistles one would be a colour I don't actually like, but it turns out to be a little more muted than the photos, in a way that I really enjoy! So that's lovely, and I am pleased to add a couple more very pockety skirts to my Pinewoods rotation.

I've been having a rough first half of the year at work. It's the fact that It's 2026 fucking me up, but I've also just like...not been as good of a teacher as I would like to be. I am maybe finding new energy and doing a better job these past couple weeks, which is very good, but also extremely frustrating because boy howdy, past me did not do any favours. Recovering from that is gonna keep being rough.

Case in point: Yesterday was 9.5 hours of active work, today was 9. Both with additional 2 hour zoom meetings after I got home. This is me _barely_ keeping up. It remains really _really_ frustrating that the better I do at my job the more time it takes --there is so little that I am able to optimize.

But I have a decent piece of differentiation/extra challenge for my ninth graders tomorrow (since some of them are definitely already finished with the activity that I expect the other half of the class to finish tomorrow). I found all the old reference sheets and made good (filled in!) copies for the special-ed tenth graders taking the midterm next week. I wrote a thoughtful circle activity (with help/inspiration from my coteacher!) for class 2 to do some community building with their extra classtime due to snow day shenanigans. I printed a couple early copies of the midterm for any tenth graders who want to start the midterm early since they won't be here Monday. I emailed the students and parents of every 9th grader who failed the midterm to begin making a tutoring and retake plan. I sorted the papers to return for one (of three, sigh) class so that I can just drop a pile at each person's desk instead of endlessly running around the room.

(to be fair, that last one is explicitly a "goddamn, recovering from being less good the first half of the year sucks" problem, since it's returning basically every paper I'd collected since, I dunno, October? This is very much something I could've been doing better on. Like. Returning things more frequently, yanno?)

((And to be unfair, I still have more grading and things to return, but that's all quarter 3 work at least.))

And while both yesterday and today I did take breaks after my contractual work day ended, they were only 45-60 minutes total. That's a lot better than getting stuck playing shitty phone games for three hours after the last bell and having to suddenly rush my copies so I can go the fuck home. I'm proud of myself for that.

Still though. "Excuse me while I teach your child but first I must" remains _barely_ satire. Rereading it, the phrase "time-wasting professional development" especially stings this week. Also the depressing reminder that this was in 2018 which is the only reason "attend a training for how to best protect my immigrant students from being targeted, deported, or killed by the government that should be supporting them" isn't anywhere on there. You know. Hypothetically.

So I'm flopping now, wearing a cute new skirt, and debating what to do for the last hour or so before I have to go to bed. It's such a delight to have any damn time to myself, maybe I'll waste it by fucking around with unsatisfying video games.

Maybe this weekend I'll have time and energy to make a dint on my grading pile. Or I could try going to bells for the first time in months? Both are good options, I suppose.

I wish you time and energy to do all the beautiful things that excite you.

~Sor
MOOP!