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What is it about the apartment upstairs? Am I doomed to having to overhear people's private couples fights for my whole life? Ugh. I don't know if it's better or worse that this one doesn't sound like it's alcohol-fueled, as the old ones inevitably were. I should probably have vaguebooked this, sigh.
There, instead, I've posted in LJ, because there's another layer of almost-no-one-who-reads-this-knows-my-address-or-neighbors.
By the way, 2015 sucks so far:
1. My mom fell right before Xmas, which I may have posted about. She is recovering slowly, with a walker. She has a torn shoulder tendon (we think) which is inoperable and possibly won't ever fully be repaired, and a fractured hip, which the ER Xray did not reveal.
2. I fell, myself, a couple of weeks later, twisting my knee, and hobbled around on a cane for ages. Sucked.
3. I missed jury duty by accident last week and emailed the court in a panic, expecting to get a new date ages away. Instead, I got one the next Monday, which was bad timing in terms of school stuff. The original date would have been bad, and maybe worse, because I was scheduled to be administering a computerized test.
4. At least I didn't get picked for a jury, though the other teacher FROM MY SAME SCHOOL who was there on the same day did.
5. The next morning (this past Tuesday) I went downstairs to find my car booted for accumulated tickets, which are like an extra payment on top of my (admittedly insanely cheap) rent BECAUSE THERE IS NO FUCKING PARKING IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, and plus right after I fell, I got quite a few tickets. The price of releasing the boot pretty much eviscerated the backpay settlement we got for our belatedly settled contract. And also I had to wait for a cop to come remove it because the stupid code didn't work and was therefore two hours late to work.
6. Tonight my battery died and I had to wait for Triple A, and then I had to buy a new car battery.
I am really glad we have a three day weekend. I need it. Although I should probably spend quite a lot of it cleaning my apartment and doing laundry.
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Random better things:
• my cat Devlin is still and always awesome;
•I make very, very good computer slide shows (that is, PowerPoints*), these days using Google Slides;
•I got to riff on Nat Turner and primary source political cartoons today -- as part of my one-a-day Black History Month slideshow of people none of my students have heard of before... the original list of people is pretty much unchanged from when I started this back in February of 2012;
•also a Slides presentation on the importance of agricultural changes and "new rice" in the Song dynasty, that was weirdly fun;
•I have rediscovered the joys of gin and tonics, which I used to occasionally drink in company with my grandmother -- they were her favorite cocktail. I'm using Bombay Sapphire gin, which I've always been intrigued by for the Indian allusion and the blue bottle. I think my grandma's favorite was Tanqueray.
*I know these are outdated, Google Slides or whatever, and that even Prezis are past their sell-by date, but I still haven't mastered Prezis, and I am sure when I do that I will be into them ages and ages past their popularity. And honestly, a Slides presentation is still more effective to introduce readings or mini-lectures than NOT having visuals.
There, instead, I've posted in LJ, because there's another layer of almost-no-one-who-reads-this-knows-my-address-or-neighbors.
By the way, 2015 sucks so far:
1. My mom fell right before Xmas, which I may have posted about. She is recovering slowly, with a walker. She has a torn shoulder tendon (we think) which is inoperable and possibly won't ever fully be repaired, and a fractured hip, which the ER Xray did not reveal.
2. I fell, myself, a couple of weeks later, twisting my knee, and hobbled around on a cane for ages. Sucked.
3. I missed jury duty by accident last week and emailed the court in a panic, expecting to get a new date ages away. Instead, I got one the next Monday, which was bad timing in terms of school stuff. The original date would have been bad, and maybe worse, because I was scheduled to be administering a computerized test.
4. At least I didn't get picked for a jury, though the other teacher FROM MY SAME SCHOOL who was there on the same day did.
5. The next morning (this past Tuesday) I went downstairs to find my car booted for accumulated tickets, which are like an extra payment on top of my (admittedly insanely cheap) rent BECAUSE THERE IS NO FUCKING PARKING IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, and plus right after I fell, I got quite a few tickets. The price of releasing the boot pretty much eviscerated the backpay settlement we got for our belatedly settled contract. And also I had to wait for a cop to come remove it because the stupid code didn't work and was therefore two hours late to work.
6. Tonight my battery died and I had to wait for Triple A, and then I had to buy a new car battery.
I am really glad we have a three day weekend. I need it. Although I should probably spend quite a lot of it cleaning my apartment and doing laundry.
-----------
Random better things:
• my cat Devlin is still and always awesome;
•I make very, very good computer slide shows (that is, PowerPoints*), these days using Google Slides;
•I got to riff on Nat Turner and primary source political cartoons today -- as part of my one-a-day Black History Month slideshow of people none of my students have heard of before... the original list of people is pretty much unchanged from when I started this back in February of 2012;
•also a Slides presentation on the importance of agricultural changes and "new rice" in the Song dynasty, that was weirdly fun;
•I have rediscovered the joys of gin and tonics, which I used to occasionally drink in company with my grandmother -- they were her favorite cocktail. I'm using Bombay Sapphire gin, which I've always been intrigued by for the Indian allusion and the blue bottle. I think my grandma's favorite was Tanqueray.
*I know these are outdated, Google Slides or whatever, and that even Prezis are past their sell-by date, but I still haven't mastered Prezis, and I am sure when I do that I will be into them ages and ages past their popularity. And honestly, a Slides presentation is still more effective to introduce readings or mini-lectures than NOT having visuals.
