Talking About the Weather

I know that talking about the weather is the smallest of small talk, the type of inoffensive speech that makes it safe to talk to total strangers. I hate small talk, preferring to talk about people’s passions, as I am passionate about mine. But look at the freaking heat index!

We’re under a heat advisory here in Northwest Missouri. The heat index (a measure of how heat and humidity get together to cause misery) is 108 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature without the heat index will be 98 degrees F. People die of heat stroke at these temperatures. I won’t be going out today because I take medications that make me prone to the consequences of high temperatures. (Of course, human nature being what it is, I desperately want to go to Starbucks to write.)

I think about climate change a lot when the weather gets like this. It’s not just my imagination; scientists note an increase in weather incidents like this. On average, our world is getting hotter. I think about this from the viewpoint of someone sixty years old: I remember when we didn’t worry about this. I don’t want to worry, but I am worried. How will this affect the world’s people?

As a Midwesterner (United States), I’ll be far away from the flooding and some of the extremes as they come. But how will people in poverty fare? People without air conditioning? There are ways of living, but do we still know them? Do we remember how to do them? What will we have to give up of our 21st Century values to enact them?

Photo by Fabio Partenheimer on Pexels.com

I wonder how life will change. I wonder if I cannot change my life enough to make any difference in the slide into turbulent weather. Thinking this as I sit in my writing spot is a lonely moment, because it’s sobering to think about a future I can’t control. To think it all goes downhill from here.

I could be wrong. We are always on the brink of great innovation. Change is always possible. Maybe someday, riches will be measured in how we relate to others. I do not feel optimistic at this moment in 98 degrees F.

Making my Summer Productive

Usually, summer for me is a free-fall. For externally required work, I have the internships (now up to 13 students) and even then, the class has a huge amount of flexibility. I can grade the assignments (which arrive in dribs and drabs, as everyone has a different time schedule) and set up site visits with some leeway. There’s one conference I’m presenting at a poster session for, at the end of the month. Absolutely required.

Then there are the things I should get done before the fall semester, which are tempting to put off till the end of the summer. I have two new classes I’m teaching (one I used to teach 10 years ago, another I got from another instructor) this fall that I should prep for. It would tempt me to take a vacation for this first part of summer and vegetate. I have done it in the past, usually because I get depressed at the end of the school year.

This year I’m trying something different — I’m structuring my days. In the morning, I do prep for my new classes, refreshing myself with the material. When I’m done with that, I will be prepping the class Canvas (online instruction) sites. In the afternoons, I’m writing. If I get done with the daily task early I do what I’m doing now — blogging, getting attacked by my cats, and surfing a little.

Somewhere in here I have to fit some real vacation time. I don’t know when I’m doing that. I don’t do ‘nothing’ well, and would probably arrange my vacation as writing time anyhow. Mixed with restaurants and coffee. The best part is that my inability to do nothing isn’t my manic state. When I’m manic, I don’t do ‘anything’ well.

I’m looking at the plan, and I need to make sure I have some rest time. I can do that after reading my chapter or my module for the day. Pace myself; there’s plenty of time to do this.

Easing into Summer Professor/Writer Version

An end-of-semester status report:

All I have left to grade is final essay exams for my Personal Adjustment students.
I’ve successfully weaned myself off the lithium with apparently no difficulties. We shall see.
I am done with Kringle Through the Snow (Kringle Christmas romance); struggling with Carrying Light (Hidden in Plain Sight series; a novel about Barn Swallows’ Dance and societal collapse)
My summer will be spent supervising 10 interns (a smaller amount), putting together two new classes for fall, and writing. I foresee lots of Starbucks time. Starbucks will have to learn to love me.
Summer trips: A conference in San Francisco end of May, New York Hope (disaster training exercise for which I am moulage coordinator) at beginning of August, and hopefully a writing retreat here and there.
My writing/publishing goal list for summer: Finish Carrying Light; prepare Kringle Through the Snow for Oct. 1 release; prepare Reclaiming the Balance (Hidden in Plain Sight series) for Jan. 1st release; Set up my social media posts through December on Loomly.
My wish list: That amazing bit of happenstance that will propel my writing into notice, continued health for my family (one husband, four cats, extended folks), and inspired writing.

The Home Stretch

On the professing front, all I have left to grade for the semester are two class assignments and one final. Not a bad thing; Finals run next week. I will make it.

Summer might be a light one — I only have 10 interns so far for summer. Normally I have 20. I could use a light summer, because I still don’t know what’s going to happen with my medication. It hasn’t happened yet, at any rate.

That means writing. This means finishing Carrying Light, editing Kringle Through the Snow for October 1 publication, and doing a final edit of Reclaiming the Balance, for Jan. 1 publication. If I get the guts to publish the latter. It’s such a unique book. The conflict is personal and internal to Barn Swallows’ Dance and its residents. One of the main characters is non-binary, so I wrote the book with they/them, so I expect reaction from the more bigoted.

I might also write on Walk Through Green Fire, in which the lead female rescues a prince of Faerie. That one is hard because I expect it to have sex scenes, at least one. Unless I chicken out.

We shall see what the summer brings when it gets here, which is a couple weeks from now.

Have I Missed the Silly Season?

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about living in Maryville is what I call the Silly Season. It runs from April through July, and it features little oddities that I’m not sure most college towns (or towns of any sort) have to weather.

The Silly Season usually starts on campus with art projects. Like giant rubber duckies on Colden Pond, or a doorframe set up in the middle of the sidewalk. The Northwest Yeti. Little things like that. Then it spreads to the town, with horses at the local drive-in tied to the order kiosk and a large cow in the grocery store parking lot. Not so much madness as a head-shake and a chuckle. This is our excitement. It’s slow around here.

That has not happened this year. Nothing has startled a smile out of me on campus, nothing unusual has been sighted in town, not even a Weinermobile. I am worried that the Silly Season has expired in Maryville, and I miss it.

It might be time for me to figure out how to revive the season. The trick is that one cannot try too hard to be silly. One can try to get attention, but not try to dictate what kind of attention one gets. And the most important thing, one has to do it without any self-consciousness. One gives in to the awkwardness and goes all-out. It’s the difference between wearing a mascot costume and doing that mascot dance wholeheartedly.

I have too much self-consciousness lately, and I blame my meds for that. Bipolar has a great correlation with unabashed weirdness, but it has a great correlation with other things I’d rather do without. If I had less, though, I’d consider adding some silly to people’s lives here. Set up (with the proper permits) a lemonade stand downtown. Walk in bunny ears through Walmart. Put signs on my car reading “Lauren Leach-Steffens for Whatever” in campaign style. And more.

I hope the Silly Season comes back. It’s good for some Facebook posts from home.

I Can’t Wait

I can’t wait till the school year is over. Have I mentioned that I can’t wait?

The students and I have made this journey for the year, broken into two semesters, and we’re tired. The semesters culminate in final projects and exams, and none of us are at our best. I remind myself of grace and the fact that I was once a student, and not one a teacher would ask for.

I have 75 students in classes and about 6 interns each semester. We all have our issues that weigh on us. Some of my students have issues with depression or anxiety or other mental health concerns. Many work at least part-time besides going to classes. Some have learning differences and need accommodations. A few have family issues that pull at them. People have died in their lives — some too young. All of this at the same time as an educational experience.

This summer, I will supervise somewhere between 14 and 20 students. But it’s a different experience. Summer is more relaxed for me because I lead the internships mostly from home over the computer. I don’t have a lot of exhausting face-to-face time (as an introvert, this is so big) and no meetings. I think it’s more relaxing for my students as well, as their performance anxiety is less in an internship where they’re learning by doing. My students are still working at regular jobs, sometimes even full-time, so they’re still under stress.

I can’t wait till summer, and it turns out I don’t have to wait long. I have the rest of this week, and then next week is finals. I’ll have a bunch of grading, and then I will be done. I will turn in grades Monday the 8th and then start my interns with a presentation on Wednesday.

Wish me luck.

Springtime and Tunnel Vision

It’s Spring, but I’ve hardly noticed.

I have noticed plants coming up in my front garden. An almost miniature rose, some lavender, and some that surprised me — mitsuba and bee balm and anise hyssop. The front garden needs some more plants, which I will plant in May. The fuki is taking over the side yard, and I’m worried about its prowess. I guess I’m not as oblivious as I thought, although I’m missing such things as kayaks on Colden Pond at the college, driving by student parties on Main Street, and taking a class outside because the classroom’s too hot (never mind, I did that).

It’s also the end of Spring semester — two weeks of classes and half a week of finals. I’m dealing with a flurry of interns and a last hurrah of grading and then finals and then — a much more relaxed summer.

Not that I have nothing to do this summer. I will wrangle somewhere between thirteen and twenty interns, presenting an orientation via Zoom and visiting them at their internship sites. But my home will be my office and there will be plenty of time to write.

It’s been a tiring year. Although it’s nice that Spring is here, I can’t wait until Summer break.

As the End of the Summer Approaches …

I can feel the end of the summer. The County Fair is over, the weather is boiling, and I’ve done all my digital setup for the fall semester. I always do it early, according to my Facebook posts from years past, mostly to prepare myself for the fact that my days will be fuller and more carefree, and there will not be nearly as much free time to write.

School starts August 17, less than a month from now. Meetings start a week before that, and there will (hopefully) be a beginning-of-semester cookout for faculty and staff which represents the beginning of the semester more than any ritual could.

What have I accomplished? I’m a quarter of the way through one book, an eighth of the way through another, and I don’t know which one to write. I have finalized It Takes Two to Kringle, which is waiting only for some last minute putting together before I submit it to Kindle. I have edited an old but (in my opinion) outstanding book called Prodigies, which I hope to send off to agents soon. I neglected my garden again. I relaxed.

Life is good and I passed through the summer doldrums without much damage. Soon I will go through the beginning of semester highs (If this sounds like bipolar, it is, sort of). But it’s my cycle of the year and I will do my best to meet it.

After a Hiatus

I’ve been fine …

I’ve just been very busy. That’s something built in to the month of April at a university — finishing class instruction, grading end-of-semester assignments, shepherding interns through the search and sign-up processes. And then there are the plants and the gardens. I think I have over-committed, but as always, it’s how I roll.

Feeling the breezes of Spring

This is the first Spring semester I can say has flown by quickly, even though we had inconvenient snowfall through March and even into April. Today the apple blossoms sway outside my office window and my youngest cat, Chloe, stares out.

Chloe turns 1 today, so perhaps she’s celebrating.

I’ll be celebrating soon. By the end of the week, I will be in full summer mode, where I have about 1/4 of the work I normally have, with a largely open schedule for three months. This means time to blog, to organize my thoughts, and to get past thinking about writing into actually writing.

Winter is behind me. Time to enjoy.

The Beginning of the Semester Looms

Friday is zero hour, the beginning of semester meetings. I’ll sit through a couple days of meetings and then classes start.

This summer emptied out into the flattest vista of grey, and I curled up in it. I know this has been the most restful summer I’ve had, and that if I’m not rested up for the fall, I’ll never be.

This is NOT me.
Photo by Max Fischer on Pexels.com

I still don’t know if I’m ready for the semester to start. I don’t know if I’m ready for the color and the cacophony of all the college students yet, the part of my life where I stand in front of a class and try to make the subject’s information real, the part where I unleash my odd sense of humor to help capture my students. I have forgotten that “professor” is one of my roles.

But this happens at the end of every summer, and the transition is made easier by the rituals of beginning: The all-employee picnic. The all-staff and faculty meetings. The greeting of new students. The cleaning of my office.

I’m ready. As ready as I’ll ever get. Bring on the cacophony.