Oh... Hisashiburi desu!
Oct. 27th, 2020 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse It's been a while, hasn't it?
Since we last talked, this happened:
Image: A photo that perfectly depicts what is wrong with Minnesota: a bright orange, plastic Halloween pumpkin covered in several inches of snow.
The crazy thing? The snow hasn't melted yet. We will, periodically, get snow like this, this early, in Minnesota. But, normally it just warms up the next day and it's like we dreamed a dream of the winter to come. This time? The snow has been here over a week and then it snowed more on to of that! Temperatures have been in the 30s-20s (for my international friends: -1 C to -7 C.) This morning we woke up to a windchill of -9 F/-23 C. THAT'S NOT OKAY EVEN FOR 2020!!!
The only good news is that I've been so swamped with my coursework that I haven't much budged from my spot hunched over my laptop on in the comfy chair under a pile of fleece blankets.
Okay, so it turns out, gentle readers, that I am still the sort of person who, despite being nearly 53 years old, thinks, "Oh, I'll fill that in later," forgetting that later comes pretty quickly when you've set up a class to be high in critique already. So, last night, a good 1 day and 20 some hours before the next lesson opens for my students, I realized I had whole sections still marked [needs to be done] or [flesh out.] So I was up until midnight last night frantically looking up fantasy subgenres and their official definitions--as well as examples of fantasy tropes that I secretly still love (along with ones I feel are overdone.) So.. that was FUN. I mean, it was kind of, but... also exhausting.
I really, really do not know how my friends who are teachers are coping with doing this, only with several courses and hundreds of students.
Then I actually got inspired to write a science fiction short story that I'm trying to finish for my writers' critique group meeting next Thursday.
AND I'm starting to plot out a novelette for a friend's new F/F publishing venture...
I mean, I was telling a friend that I think maybe all the bad news/anxiety of 2020 has finally broken through to the other side for me. Previously, I could barely read or write for worry; now I'm so overextended on panic that I'm like NOPE, checking out now, gimme all the fiction worlds!! I mean, I am not checking out in any real, worrisome sense of that. I'm still reading the newspaper. I have already voted and am ready to join the protests, should that be needed, but yeah. The part of my brain that was creatively blocked has simply been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of bullsh*t 2020 has heaped on us.
Silver lining?
Considering what it's taken to break me, I'd say NO.
But, that's what I've been doing for the past week and a half since I went silent. How have you been??
Since we last talked, this happened:
Image: A photo that perfectly depicts what is wrong with Minnesota: a bright orange, plastic Halloween pumpkin covered in several inches of snow.
The crazy thing? The snow hasn't melted yet. We will, periodically, get snow like this, this early, in Minnesota. But, normally it just warms up the next day and it's like we dreamed a dream of the winter to come. This time? The snow has been here over a week and then it snowed more on to of that! Temperatures have been in the 30s-20s (for my international friends: -1 C to -7 C.) This morning we woke up to a windchill of -9 F/-23 C. THAT'S NOT OKAY EVEN FOR 2020!!!
The only good news is that I've been so swamped with my coursework that I haven't much budged from my spot hunched over my laptop on in the comfy chair under a pile of fleece blankets.
Okay, so it turns out, gentle readers, that I am still the sort of person who, despite being nearly 53 years old, thinks, "Oh, I'll fill that in later," forgetting that later comes pretty quickly when you've set up a class to be high in critique already. So, last night, a good 1 day and 20 some hours before the next lesson opens for my students, I realized I had whole sections still marked [needs to be done] or [flesh out.] So I was up until midnight last night frantically looking up fantasy subgenres and their official definitions--as well as examples of fantasy tropes that I secretly still love (along with ones I feel are overdone.) So.. that was FUN. I mean, it was kind of, but... also exhausting.
I really, really do not know how my friends who are teachers are coping with doing this, only with several courses and hundreds of students.
Then I actually got inspired to write a science fiction short story that I'm trying to finish for my writers' critique group meeting next Thursday.
AND I'm starting to plot out a novelette for a friend's new F/F publishing venture...
I mean, I was telling a friend that I think maybe all the bad news/anxiety of 2020 has finally broken through to the other side for me. Previously, I could barely read or write for worry; now I'm so overextended on panic that I'm like NOPE, checking out now, gimme all the fiction worlds!! I mean, I am not checking out in any real, worrisome sense of that. I'm still reading the newspaper. I have already voted and am ready to join the protests, should that be needed, but yeah. The part of my brain that was creatively blocked has simply been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of bullsh*t 2020 has heaped on us.
Silver lining?
Considering what it's taken to break me, I'd say NO.
But, that's what I've been doing for the past week and a half since I went silent. How have you been??
no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 06:46 pm (UTC)With the whole 2020 anxiety thing, I feel like I'm in this weird spot where I'm still anxious about a lot (the pandemic, the election, and so on), but maybe the crushing "everything is doomed and nothing is okay" anxiety has finally lifted. I'm hoping that ends up being the case.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 11:55 pm (UTC)If you are okay saying, I'd love to know where you are in Indiana. I have in-laws in Valpariso, IN, so we're in your state fairly often--or were when people traveled places.
Also, welcome back to Dreamwidth (or to Dreamwidth from LJ, if I read your blog right)!
no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 12:13 am (UTC)And it's back to Dreamwidth - although I was on LiveJournal a lot back in the days before Dreamwidth came along.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 08:42 pm (UTC)My hope for all my American friends is that they get to protest Biden.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 11:59 pm (UTC)But, yeah, actually for all of my complaining I'm having fun. Last minute, I recruited another one of my writers' group members to give a guest lecture (via recorded Zoom) to the class. So, that's always entertaining?
I was telling Shawn, though, I wonder how many other teachers have spent their own money (not to mention time) learning video editing so they can present cool stuff to static classes? My guess? ALL OF THEM.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 09:39 pm (UTC)It's going to warm up later this week and into next. I'm hoping, honestly, that it gets to the point that sometime in mid-December I'm grumbling because it should snow already.
P.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 12:01 am (UTC)And, yeah, my real favorite thing about Minnesotans is that we'll complain bitterly about the weather--no matter WHAT the weather is. I swear I have heard people complain that it's "too sunny."
So, yes, I will probably later on this same blog be complaining about the utter lack of snow in December.