The Longest School Year Ever

Why has this been the longest school year?

A full year with COVID. Teaching live and on Zoom simultaneously. Being constrained in teaching because I’m tethered to a camera. Students going on quarantine or isolation. Disinfecting all surfaces in the classroom. No Spring Break. Distance. Just so much distance. Constant stress — Am I the next victim? Is my husband? Will we survive COVID?

What are my summer plans?

Interns and writing. And probably some research setup. Hopefully a writing retreat or two. It’s going to be one of the more relaxing summers I’ve had because I won’t be taking a summer class toward my certificate in disaster mental health. I may not know what to do with all my free time. I have a short story collection to finish (not knowing how many more episodes to write) and I may play more with short story ideas. I have too many novels sitting in my lap to write another one for a while. (Gaia’s Hands, Apocalypse, Reclaiming the Balance, Whose Hearts are Mountains, Prodigies, The Kringle Conspiracy, and Kringle in the Night — I guess that’s 7.) Maybe try to get more published.

What do you think I should do this summer?

I need some ideas — weird or no — of what I should be doing this summer. Please make suggestions in comments!

Optimism in the Face of Rejection

Optimism is hard to manage sometimes. I always take risks with optimism that they will improve my future, and for the last six years, they have not panned out. I can’t be specific with the particulars, but let’s say I have put myself forward for a lot of opportunities only to not be chosen.

I’m working on not feeling sorry for myself and seeing this latest failure as room for other opportunities. The people around me with more faith in God would say that God is waiting for the right moment to open up new opportunities. I don’t think God is that hands-on, given how many people in the world there are. I don’t think God reserves this for His (and I deliberately use “his” here) True Believers. And I don’t think a God would hold me back from some of the most excellent opportunities I did not succeed in. So I have to believe that if there are new opportunities that will actually become fruitful, I have not seen them yet. I have to believe in “yet”.

Or maybe I am taking the wrong opportunities. I have been trying the last six (at least) years to re-invent myself. Ever since I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on medication, I have changed as a person — no elation, no depression, no excitement unless I have a compelling goal, less enthusiastic, more introverted, less charming. I have felt too rooted and unfulfilled in my life, especially 5 years from retirement, and at the same time not manic enough to chuck everything away and move to Thailand.

If I don’t try, I will never get where I want. But I hate trying for something when so much of it is out of my control. And reinventing myself requires the outside world. All I can do, though, is be optimistic. God, if you’re listening, point me toward the right opportunity.

Second Best

My new computer feels just like my old computer, which is understandable because it’s the same model, only a bit more souped up. I’m paying attention to its speed, which should be faster with a higher processor. I have to find a test to check out the video card.

The new, the shiny, the improved attract us as consumers. Computer manufacturers play upon this and make incremental changes to their products, charging high prices for a product not significantly different than the previous one. How much better is an i9 processor than an i7?

I wanted the shiniest and newest, until I realized that it would cost over twice as much as this one, very gently used, souped-up computer.

The Used New Computer

I’m getting a new (to me) computer today. It’s used, it’s a Surface Book 2 like mine is, but it is close to the top-of-the-line for a Book 2 and it cost about $700. I’m going to be happy to have a graphics card (for using Sketchup for making maps of areas in my books. And an i7 processor instead of an i5. And twice the hard drive space. and 16 GB RAM.

This will result in a whole afternoon porting things from one computer to the other, which will kill a lot of time. But it will be worth it.

We’re pretty frugal here, choosing to buy the slightly less recent models rather than the newest. Ok, admittedly, if I could afford a top-of-the-line Book 3 — I still wouldn’t get it. So much of the price of the newest model is that it’s new. I would have had to get a more modest computer (like my current computer at i5, 256 mb ssd drive, no video card.

So this is my new (to me) computer, which I should get a lot of use out of.

Camp NaNo Progress

I didn’t write yesterday, because I am seriously involved in Camp NaNo. I’ve been averaging 3 hours a day, which is a lot when juggling work and other good things. But I have a problem:

I’m running out of NaNo work to do.

My goal was to edit Reclaiming the Balance into a more workable story (it’s my second problem child after Gaia’s Hands). Which I’ve done. Then I decided to add editing Kringle in the Night after getting one of my beta readers’ stuff back. I’ve edited that.

I guess I’m going to edit Reclaiming the Balance again. It could be better; it’s something to do even if I think it’s going to sit in a drawer for the rest of its life. (I must stay optimistic!)

Things I Don’t Understand About WordPress

First thing: How can someone like your blog post without visiting your blog post? I’ve noticed this a couple times, where I get an announcement that someone “likes” my post, yet doesn’t show up in the visitor count? Have they even read the post?

Second thing: How do I get more followers that aren’t trying to sell me something? I am growing skeptical as I peruse the blogs of the people who follow me and find information on questionable investment schemes and promotion services. I don’t believe that these people are really reading my blog, but they like it every couple of days so I don’t forget about them. Luckily, not all of my followers are so content-free.

Third thing: Is there a book with hints for how to do all the cool things I don’t know how to do? Or aren’t there any cool things? Or are those things that are only possible if you have the paid version?

My One-Day Spring Break

I’m having trouble waking up this morning, probably because this is my long-awaited Spring Break. Yes, my long-awaited one day of Spring Break.

What am I going to do with it? Edit Reclaiming the Balance. Look longingly at a picture of the beach. Nap, apparently. Drink coffee. Possibly make another couple submissions of short story stuff on Submittable. Take a nice long bath and put on a face mask.

But I will not work.

I will not answer a single student email all weekend.

This is my Spring break, and if I cannot have a spa weekend/writing retreat, I will make it a retreat at home.

Another Camp NaNo

It’s April first, and (jokes aside) today is the beginning of the first session of Camp NaNo. This is the training wheels version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which is an international movement to help people come up with 50k words toward a novel.

In Camp NaNo, the writer sets a goal — hours revising, words, etc . The minimum goal is 10k words or 10 hours, although most people set higher goals than that. Then the writer fulfills that goal. There is accountability in the daily timer where the daily word/time count go.

My goal is to revise Reclaiming the Balance for 30 hours. That’s reasonable at 1 hour a day, although I think I will probably edit more than that most days. The story desperately needs editing, may even be unredeemable, but I’ll never know until I try.

Here’s some bling from Camp:

I Don’t Want Any Monsters Inside Me

I’ve been binge-watching Monsters Inside Me, a show that ran on Discovery Channel from 2009-2017. It’s a documentary about parasites. And rare bacterial infections. And freak accidents involving foreign bodies. It’s grossology with a scientific background.

I have an interest in medical stuff, especially in what could go wrong. I think it’s because I’m a little bit of a hypochrondriac — the more I know about medical stuff, the less likely I am to diagnose myself with something. I understand that for most people it’s the opposite, but for me knowledge is power.

Here’s what I’ve learned from Monsters Inside Me:

If you have a parasite, your doctors will think it’s the flu until you’re almost in a coma. Unless the parasite is in your eye — then they’ll think it’s eyestrain.
Wives with Google save husbands’ lives.
“Flesh-eating bacteria” is a very bad thing.
Babies/Infants/Toddlers put things in their mouth to “feel them”. And then they swallow them, causing big trouble.
If you use tap water to clean your contacts, you’ll get acanthamoeba. And then you will get blind.
Your spouse thinks you’re exaggerating your symptoms.
What you have is extremely rare, unless you visited Belize. Or Asia. Or Africa. It’s really common there
.Don’t eat raw crawdads. Apparently guys do that.
“Brain eating amoeba” is a very bad thing.
You can have a parasite (lots of parasites) and not know it. Have a nice day.

Is this depression?

I am fighting a down mood that may or may not be depression. The seasons can set people with bipolar up with either mania or depression, and this article suggests that there is definitely a link between manic or depressed state and weather.

I won’t know if it’s a true bipolar state until I’ve held it for two weeks or more. This came on rapidly on Friday, and it’s hard to tell whether it’s an actual mood swing or just me beating myself up over something. I can be negative on myself sometimes. Or it could be a bad few days, which I’ve had. Or it could be burnout, because a lot of us in education are going through it after COVID.

So I’m resting and being patient with myself. I’m accepting that maybe the inner nagging voice is right and I’m a bad teacher these days, but I still have worth as a person. Maybe that will get me through.