January's End (as far as Microbie's Meme)

[maeve66]

26. Have you ever been blindsided by something someone told you?

I was blindsided when I was told what I was going to get for winning the annual French contest at the end of my senior year of high school. I thought I was going to get a dictionary, and was hoping for a Petit Larousse. No, instead I was getting a scholarship to an Alliance Française course in Paris, fucking unbelievable. I was also blindsided when I was told, more recently (about a year and a half ago) that I was being involuntarily transferred from my school site of ten or so years to the alternative (and right now still virtual) school I am at now.

27. What is a positive habit you’d like to cultivate?

I HATE this kind of question, because there are SO MANY good habits I do not have and will probably not cultivate. The one I am working on now is trying to make food from pantry shelves and fridge rather than ordering from DoorDash.

28. What are your favorite "little things" in life?

Really, a lot of it is petting my cat, and drinking tea. Even just taking the first sip of tea makes me feel better, when I am stressed, and the exact same thing is true of petting Devlin. I am sure petting all cats is calming, but her fur is particularly plush and dense.

29. When was the last time you had to hold your tongue?

Yeah, work meetings are a good bet for this one. I had to bite my tongue repeatedly at our Zoom Staff Meeting yesterday, sigh.

30. How do you feel about traveling to and possibly inhabiting other planets?

I would actually be into this if it were kind of along Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy lines, which involve anti-capitalist revolution on Mars and also anti-aging treatments.

31. If you could redo a decade in your life which would you choose?

Not an entire decade. One year, yeah, probably. Worst relationship I was ever in, and I'm still mad at myself for even beginning it, much less failing to end it until it had been most of a year. UGH.

Comments

[sabotabby]

The nice thing about Zoom meetings is that your camera can stop working when you need to roll your eyes.

[microbie]

Yeah, I could probably redo a year or two. I would redo 2016, a terrible work year. What I know now would be genuinely helpful. Also I wouldn't mind redoing the 2.5 years spent in grad school (doing something else entirely).

[maeve66]

I loved grad school, even though I am not an academic. I never had such intellectual fun, before or since. Weird thing, though -- I have always loved teaching history, even middle school history, but it's been rare that I've gotten to teach what my actual MA is in, e.g. American History (specifically, U. S. 19th c. Social and Labor history, with plenty of race and gender...). And this year, I am teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade history (also 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Languae Arts, Math, and Science, which... well, pretty head explody) and I HATE THE AMERICAN HISTORY part -- the 8th grade part. WHYYYYY??? (As my kids would type; they really love adding letters to the ends of words for emphasis. Any letters, not just silent vowels.)

I dislike the textbook, for one thing (though I am fond of the 6th and 7th grade versions -- TCI History Alive! for Ancient History and The Medieval World and Beyond)... the 8th grade one on US History "Through Industrialism" (which is already a really weird title for the first half of US History)... it's ungodly BORING. How can it be BORING??? But it is, and I DO NOT HAVE TIME to do creative lesson planning without it, this being the first time in years that I've done 8th grade US History. It's really depressing.

Okay, I've reeled off on a tangent.