Am I ready? Am I ever?

Classes are starting in a couple days, and I hope I’m ready for them. I always feel like I’m not quite ready, but I also feel assured that none of my colleagues at the University feel like they’re ready either. It’s the lament of faculty everywhere, I guess. (Just as I started writing, something broke in one of my online course sites and I had to fix it. So much for being ready.)

It will be another semester of social distancing, because vaccines have not been widely available in the US yet. I will meet with half the class at a time again, giving the same activities to each section. Tuesday and Thursday will be my busy days. Office hours will be Zoom or live. Everything live will be with masks on.

I have gotten used to COVID protocols, strangely enough. I’m accustomed to not going places, wearing masks, Zooming. I miss live teaching, but if distance protocols are how I have to teach, I’ll keep doing so.

So I’ll be as ready as I can on Thursday when I start teaching.

Mourning the wreckage of a noble experiment

It’s not over yet for the US.

There are rumors of a big insurrection hitting Washington for the inauguration, with Twitter verifying. I’m hoping that the National Guard and the Capitol Police are enough to stop it if it comes. This is all very scary in a country that thought it was above all this.

That’s one of the definitive factors of the US — our hubris. Our famous last words are “It will never happen here”. It is happening here, and those of us who predicted it would feel vindicated at the same time we wish it wouldn’t have happened.

It’s still a scary time, and I feel very unprepared for the results. I wonder if I’m looking at the wreckage of a noble experiment called democracy in the US. I guess we had our time as a country, with the best days during my early childhood. I can’t help but feel our politicians don’t know how to do the hard work anymore, with most of the political energy expended into power struggles and equivocal statements that, in the end, mean nothing.

I would like to have faith in the US again, a version that doesn’t let white supremacy up to the front door of the Capitol nor let it walk in their halls. One where the White House can truly mobilize the COVID response, and societal ills can be addressed.

But if I had the money (as my job prospects at age 57 are marginal), I would move to Canada.

Where I stand (not with Trump)

In case there’s any question of where I stand:

I want to see President Trump impeached for inciting sedition.

It’s too late for the 25th Amendment (relieving Trump of duties because he’s unfit for duty) because that would just absolve him of what happened at the Capitol on Wednesday. He could claim insanity and avoid prosecution.

Trump needs to be prevented from trying for another term in 2024, which would happen if he were impeached and convicted. I’m not against Republicans per se. I’m against seditious Republicans, and that includes Cruz and Hawley. There is a process for addressing grievances, and a Congressman (or even President) doesn’t always get their way. You don’t order a mob onto the Capital just because you don’t get your way.

I’m not arguing anything novel, anything nobody else has thought about. I’m not that genius, I’m not a policymaker, I’m not a pundit. I’m an ordinary American scared of what I’ve seen.

Yesterday’s Coup Attempt

I don’t really want to write this today, because I already have nightmares from the events at the US Capitol yesterday, but it needs to be written:

Yesterday’s insurgence at the capitol was an attempted coup led by our outgoing president, who irresponsibly egged on a mob to do his bidding and then pretended that he had not.

The US has always prided itself on being “too good” for anti-democratic actions, yet many of us far away from Washington DC saw what was coming. With a demagogue for president, one who has shown little inclination toward anything but megalomania, this was inevitable. But it turned out worse than we thought.

It’s scary living in the US right now. It’s less scary, given that Congress has affirmed the electoral college vote, but I’m afraid we haven’t seen the last of these traitors given that both houses and the presidency is Democrat for the next two years.

I hope someone sees fit to invoke the 25th Amendment (removing a president from office due to unfitness to serve) even if it’s only 13 more days till inauguration.

I wondered how I would take watching a mob-rule coup attempted. Now I know.

Working while Sleeping

This music is supposed to wake me up. The coffee is supposed to wake me up, Why, then, am I not waking up?

Maybe I should type this half-asleep. I can actually type half-asleep, at least for a couple sentences before I wake up and check it. But I can’t transition to the next idea without being awake.

Wouldn’t being able to type while asleep be a good thing? Think about how much work you can get done while asleep! All the times you said “I could do this in my sleep”? What if you could?

Think about being able to type out your dreams while still having them? Ok, maybe writing on a pad with a pen, as I don’t generally sit up while dreaming. I’d love to capture my dreams, though, so maybe sitting up while sleeping would be worth it. A sleep chair and a computer desk?

Maybe this wouldn’t be a good idea. If employers found out you could work in your sleep, they would assume you could answer emails in your sleep, and then you’d never get any rest. I’m salaried, so my 55-hour week could eventually expand to a 140-hour work week. I don’t like that idea.

I think I’ve convinced myself that being productive while asleep isn’t such a good idea. That’s fine — the coffee is finally taking effect.

Living a double life

I’m definitely half-asleep. I started thinking about writing in this blog and then closed my eyes and started planning exam questions in Personal Adjustment (my positive psychology course for spring semester). I wish it was chapters of my work in progress; that would have been much more helpful at this moment.

I have a double-life. I teach, and when I’m not teaching, I write. And they’re two different worlds. I teach psychology and human services classes, and I do research occasionally on things like credit card use and euphemisms in advertising. I have about 90 students in a semester, including the internship students.

So in a few days, my days will be more absorbed in teaching and zoom meetings and the like. I will find time to write, and I might even write better because I have breaks from writing. Ironic, maybe, but that’s how it often works for me.

I look forward to retiring, but that won’t be for at least five years given the health insurance situation. Unless a miracle (the Powerball) happens, in which case I will retire early. So odds are (about a million to one) I will have the double life for a while longer.

Disbelieving in Horoscopes

According to my horoscope, my muse is supposed to be preeminent in my life today. According to my life, my muse is late on the job.

Unless, of course, he will show up with my coffee, or knock on the door while I’m sitting in front of this computer staring at the screen and saying “Duhhhhh”.

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t believe in horoscopes.

Sometimes they look like they fit well — for example, if my horoscope emphasizes work, creativity, or sleep, it usually fits in with my life. Communication problems (such as in Mercury retrograde) seem to not happen in real life for me. And anything that mentions a windfall of money is likely not to happen.

At the same time I don’t believe in horoscopes, I will mention that I’m a Virgo, with all the annoying traits inherent in the sign. I’m a perfectionist with extreme focus and a tendency toward anal-retentiveness (if you read astrologers’ descriptions of Virgos, you’ll see that astrologers tend not to like Virgos). On the other hand, I’ve let go a lot of things I’d normally fuss with, like housework. I gave that up to my husband. And even though things are not done to my impossibly high standards, I’ve let it go.

So, I’m waiting for my muse. My horoscope says I may need to go after him. I’m trying to figure out how. Maybe I do believe in horoscopes.

My Vision Board

I made a vision board on Canva. I’ve printed it out and am waiting for it to come in the mail so I can stick it to the back of the door.

A vision board shows images of where one wants to be. Mine is based on two visions: health and writing.

I’m hoping that putting it on the back of the door will engrave these habits in my mind.

I think I’m doing well so far with three of the four — I’m writing, I’m plotting my next query session, I’m eating my fruits and vegetables — but the walking is hard to do.

I have a treadmill in the basement, but I like walking outside better. Outside is a winter wonderland as in “I wonder where all this ice came from?” and my ice grippers are broken, so a good lap or two around the block isn’t happening right now.

I don’t know if vision boards work. I don’t know if I’m pushing my vision board enough. My goals seem pretty prosaic. There’s no vision of going on a tropical vacation — but I don’t want a tropical vacation. My biggest dream is to win the Powerball, but my life will become so complicated as a result, and it’s a dream for which I cannot make a plan.

Plus, I don’t think that vision boards are all about wishing for the results as much as motivating for the results. No matter how hard I try, I will not win the Powerball by anything but luck. But I know I can make things happen, and all I need is a reminder of my priorities.

Goodbyes in a college town

This afternoon I have to say goodbye to a friend. He’s going on to his new life after graduation, to Chile to help run the family business. He’s from China, and that was one of the topics we talked about, in our wider discussions on world politics and social customs.

I learned a lot about China from him, which I could relay to my husband, who is half Chinese and completely ignorant of his mother’s culture due to her insistence that they bring him and his siblings up “American”. He had to put up with my abrupt American manner, my tendency to use too much eye contact, and my occasional tendency to swear.

Living in a college town, you learn to say goodbye a lot. Students (mine and others) graduate and dispel to their new lives. Faculty take new positions, gravitating toward bigger opportunities at bigger colleges. Occasionally, faculty die. In a small college town, however, people may be transient but they’re not anonymous.

So I say goodbye again. It’s okay; it’s the natural order of things.

For the New Year

Happy New Year! I wish the best for all of you in this new year.

2021 doesn’t feel any different so far, but that doesn’t surprise me. It never does. It’s how the year develops that gives us this feeling of a good year or a bad year.

For Americans, 2020 has been a bad year. We’ve dealt with an increasingly erratic and vindictive president, a total failure at controlling the coronavirus, white supremacy, people falling through the holes in the safety net as they lost their jobs temporarily or permanently, and a horrifying loss of morale as our relatives and friends died of corona. (Other countries have struggled with the virus, the shutdowns, the deaths. I don’t mean to say otherwise, but the US’s bungled response is worse than many, many countries. and they didn’t have a president that made things ever worse).

We want to see our families again, get back to work, pull the poor and struggling up. I am hoping 2021 is the year of healing for us.

Let me think of happier things — the blank slate ahead of us and the potential for blessings.