From Brasil! X Freaking out about the election

 This is a most useless blog. All the people who used to read me here are my friends on FB and IG. I still miss their blogs and their words, but I'm still connected to some of them. 

Obviously I blog more for me than for anything else, but sending words out into the great void for nobody to read is sad.

In any case, I came to Brasil and threw my mom a really really cute birthday "party" -- with about 10 socially distanced people who came at different times and my brother, his wife, my husband, my son, two of my mom's former students, and my cousin on Zoom. 

I rented and bought pretty decorations and hired a photographer, and later my brother helped pay for all that (not that it was expensive, the dollar [and the Euro for that matter, my brother lives in Finland now] go a long way with the Real, and stuff is cheap here).

The trip and trying to work online are doing a moderately OK job in distracting me from the election, but the truth is that I AM FREAKING OUT! I am very upset, I don't think there's a solution for "Trumpism" and how it's going to destroy America (even if he loses) and how if he is re-elected will simply pave the way for all kinds of injustice and the destruction of democracy.

Even if he loses things will be hard and dire. Sigh... 

I cannot believe he may win. I am so so so traumatized by 2016 that the thought of it happening again is just unbearable. I can't think about it. If it happens, then what? How do we keep on living. 

And we had to put up, in the last two months, with a pastor basically preaching from the pulpit to vote for this trash in the name of religious liberty. So outrageous. 

I wish I could stop being mad at people and what they believe -- IN THE NAME OF RELIGION! Of saving unborn children, of saving individual freedom. Hordes of people brainwashed by Fox News and the lies the religious right constructed to make it possible for Christians to support the most anti-Christian president ever. 

Sigh... 

So much hypocrisy. The Supreme Court. That lady. 

It seems it gets worse and worse every day... I'm only writing this so I can look back on it after the election. I cannot have any hope, however. 

Even if Biden wins, everything is so destroyed it will be hard to put it together. Very hard. I can try to dream he'll win and that Kamala will run in 4 years. We can dream, but how can the dream ever become a reality if in the name of "conservative values" people vote on an IMMORAL man who lies and who has been a con artist all his life? How? How can this be?

In the name of religion and of preserving the country's "whiteness" at all costs -- that ship has sailed, BTW. And I get ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY at latinos voting for him. How? Sigh... just because he's a "macho man" who appeals to their conservatism?

I'm mad at everyone... and this is not healthy, but it's just exhausting. 

Some good quotes from John Pavlovitz

From here (published in 2018): 

It isn't political disagreement, it's divergence on a fundamental level; as people realize they may need to let go of relationships in order to hold on to the deepest contents of their hearts, to be their truest selves, to use their most authentic voices.

From more recently (10/12/20) :

I don’t believe any good people are voting for this president a second time—or they are in complete rebellion against goodness as they do.

I believe that act is fundamentally antithetical to anything good.

Sigh... how will we be able to keep interacting with these people we fundamentally disagree with?

A Corona Virus Social Distancing Social Media Pet Peeve: The Smugness

OK, I don't have the courage to write this on Facebook, so I'm taking refuge in my blog! I've been writing updates there regularly because, given our unique circumstances*, our family was directly caught in the disorienting path of this pandemic before most people were.

There are two kinds of smugness I have found quite unbearable on social media (FB and Instagram) lately: the smugness of homeschooling parents (past or present) and that of academics who already work or have lots of experience with online teaching. Sigh... It's quite unconscious, I'm sure, especially the second kind when all they want to do is be helpful to other clueless academics, but it's still not fun to encounter either one. ETA: there is a third kind! The smugness of those who already work from home! :-(

I no longer have young(er) kids and the one year in which we "cyber-schooled" precisely ten years ago was AWFUL. My youngest is currently doing online school, but he works independently all the time and all I have to do is to proofread essays. In spite of that, I cringe reading some comments of folks who have lots of experience with this because it sounds like they're almost "bragging" that their lives haven't changed a bit! Sigh...

It's more complicated with the distance learning academics because it's good to have some support, but I still feel like I'm being "preached to" or something. I can't really explain too much, it's more a gut feeling. It's kind of funny because most of the academic friends I have on FB are all former bloggers, some of whom might even still be reading this blog -- most aren't! That's why I'm writing here.

ETA: This is not nice, but all of you introverts out there are also very very smug saying that this is your dream come true and stuff. Come on, do you just want to make extroverts feel mad at you and feel worse? ;-P

In any case, here is my short rant (edited twice now). I hope I get some comments!!

*My husband was spending his sabbatical in Denmark, came to the U.S. for two weeks for a conference which was promptly canceled (Ah! The blissful ignorance we experienced two weeks ago cannot be ever recaptured!). Then we traveled to Colorado (and I now regret that) to come home to news that I'd be teaching online and that Denmark was closing its borders and the whole country. My husband remains here. Now our son's boarding school in Brazil is being kind of cancelled and he's there with my elderly parents, so we are very apprehensive about that too!

The Year of Losing, Forgetting, and Breaking Things

Sigh...

All I do is sigh... it must be aggravating to people around me. Good thing I haven't been blogging then, maybe. About that, I was mystified to still be able to use the old, never updated, Blogger app on my old iPhone 5 an actually post a few words. The major downfall for blogging for me (and probably everyone else who no longer does it) was finally getting a smart phone in 2012. The Blogger app helped a bit, but when it wasn't updated anymore, it was another huge blow.

Occasionally, I still "write blog posts in my head," but since I spend way less time on computers (mostly because I hate laptops and I have one for work) and too much time on the stupid phone, I have all but abandoned this cherished space. I feel very sad about it... and yet, I don't do much to fix it.

One thing I will have to write about is the impending beginning of being an empty-nester about 9 or 10 months from now when my oldest leaves for college. I may, or may not blog about how I am sad that he and his girlfriend broke up (precisely because of HER moving away and going to college).

Today, however, I just want to write about how this year my ADHD is just "killing me" with all the stuff I've lost (and mostly found), and forgotten, and broken. It's becoming extremely upsetting, not to mention also costly!!

I admit it's an annoying topic, but it's what's defined 2019 (I was going to write 1999!!!) so far. And I don't know WHAT to do about it!! I really don't. Taking medication (much like consuming any caffeine) is problematic for me. I can't sleep well, I don't feel hungry and just don't eat, so it's not a good option. Other things (such as Bullet Journaling) don't help much either. In any case, not to bore you with the details, the most aggravating things that happened were:

• I "lost" (in truth misplaced) my pretty journal (Katie Daisy's 2018-19 planner) inside my house for about three months. I even bought a new one (a good thing because I can now use the pictures for framing or decorating other things). It was with some books under the piano in my living room.(spent like $9)
• I brought this brand new book (if you don't want to click, Ruth Chou Simon's Beholding & Becoming) and took it to our church camp out to show to a friend. Then I forgot it on the blanket where my friend was sitting, got busy with other things and only remembered it at the end of the day -- but there had been a sudden rain and the owner of the blanket (not my friend, someone else) had tossed the book into a random camping chair. Not only was the book gone for two weeks, but it had gotten wet and dried all bent. I had already bought another book when it was found as well... (spent $15)
• Two days after also misplacing the book, I was driving to work while wearing my beloved amazonite gem necklace (made with locally mined and polished stone), but it was on wrong, so at a red light, I removed it, intending to put it back on the right way at another traffic light, but there wasn't enough time. So when I parked the car, I was in a hurry to go get the bus, I just got off the car, forgetting the necklace was on my lap. In between classes, when I went to the bathroom, I noticed I didn't have the necklace and remembered with alarm I probably had let it fall on the ground next to the car. Of course, when I walked back to my car in a hurry again (I was driving to Washington D.C. to meet up with a friend from Brazil!) I completely forgot to look for the necklace. So... two days later, when I parked in the morning, there it was, broken down by the cars which drove over it. :-( It took me two weeks to buy another one and I'm happy with the new one, but I'm $25.00 poorer. 

[maybe insert depressing photo of the broken necklace on the road]

• Just last week on Tuesday I forgot a pencil case at church, but thankfully my husband found it for me yesterday.

I wonder what I'll lose next. I have also misplaced and found a bunch of pens, but I'm getting mad at how I keep misplacing or forgetting things. I'm sure it is also related to my age. In two years I'll be fifty. Sigh...

Yeah, so, at least I finished a whole blog post, even though it's mostly negative, like some of the previous posts I wrote this year. Only 11 posts so far, I'm sure it's a new kind of depressing record for this little blog of mine.

OK, hopefully I'll blog again soon. 

Things I Did NOT Do This Semester

I've been writing this post in my head for weeks now. I already wrote that this semester was hard, but now I'd just like to register some concrete markers of how it was hard. Some of these things are kind of silly, but they still demonstrate how challenging it was.

This semester I did not...

... go to yoga or any exercise class. Not even once. :-( And I didn't exercise on my own at all either, although I intended to.

... get an ID that gives me access to my husband's university's (U#1) exercise facilities -- including free exercise classes. I didn't do that even though we found out pretty early on in the semester that I was eligible for one -- something we both wish we'd known for the past THREE YEARS since I quit working at U#1.  Better late than never, though, right?

... wax my legs even after the weather got warm (this means I had to wear either maxi skirts, leggings or fancy patterned pantyhose after it was too warm for pants and sweaters -- it really severely limited my wardrobe options).   (I only did it last Sunday when K and I went with our younger son to U#1's pool and exercise facilities).

... apply nail polish to my fingernails at all! I really, really wanted to, because it's fun and makes me happy, but I was always stressed out or in a hurry in the mornings before going to work (my preferred time to do it). I did do my toenails quickly on the Saturday previous to the last day of classes. That means I also avoided wearing open toe sandals in warm days as well.

The I taught my last class, though, I treated myself to an IMAX movie (Endgame!), first film I ever saw by myself in the theater. I even ordered popcorn (it's crazy to pay the price of an entree for popcorn!). And I posted to Instagram & Facebook that I did it! ;-P

If I remember any other things that I did not do, I'll edit the post. Of course I did countless other things, many of which were quite intense (such as driving for over six hours to take my students to and from shows, twice), cooking for my students and hosting guest speakers (three times each), organizing and hosting a music concert (once!). And some of which were fun (taking students to eat out! Enjoying the music concert immensely!). It was quite crazy and stressful, but also fun. I hope my "haven't done" list is shorter next semester!

A New Kind of (Awareness of) "In-Between-ness"

Five days ago, Laura (at 11D) wrote a post with a great title, "White Collar Blues," that compared adjuncts to freelance writers and lots of people joined in the discussion about these "white collar jobs" that lead to a life of poverty.

I wrote a long comment last Friday, but WordPress "ate" it, so I wrote a shorter one yesterday. What I wanted to add to the discussion was that my current job is a third, in-between position between tenure-track faculty and mere adjuncts (the "desperate adjuncts" about whom Laura said there's a story in the news every week). My position is pretty much permanent, but it doesn't have most "perks" of a tenure-track position.

I agree that it's not a really "bad" situation to be in, but it's still demoralizing, especially for those of us whose primary work is to teach, I imagine that for researchers it's may not feel that bad. They have a permanent research job, still have funding (I guess grant money) to go to conferences, they publish, present, etc. They just don't have to teach and don't have to go up for tenure. We, on the other hand, in spite of our training, are only expected to teach, and do a little bit of service (10% in my case). I personally feel demoralized because I was trained to do research and I would really love to do it, but I have no support whatsoever -- and, of course, with ADHD, I can't muster all it takes to get it done on my own, without being required/expected to do it. (in addition to the lack of support).

Then I looked at my blog's mast description and, to my horror, what 15 years ago when I started blogging was the "in-betweeness" of being an immigrant and of having an academic and a home life, has now transformed itself into my work situation!! I'm stuck in this "in-between" space for life! (unless I quit, which is very unlikely)

I often feel despondent about this, almost daily, but I'm STUCK!! I need to help support my family and if I can have a stable, if partially unfulfilling, job that pays a reasonable amount (more than 50k), that helps. You may or may not remember, but this is the very first full time I've had in my life, and I got it when I was 41. Sigh...

Look at the (very unfiltered) note I wrote on my phone one of these days (1/18/19):

There is hardly a day in which I don't leave work at [the university] despondent. I love my colleagues, but they teach a different language. They also have meetings and other activities which I don't have, so I feel that I don't belong, and feel horribly isolated most of the time. The person who is supposed to be my colleague [the tenure track in charge of the program -- just awarded tenure, BTW] never meets with me, only if s/he absolutely has to. My mega-commute is almost unbearable and makes for grumpy mornings and evenings. I don't feel valued and well regarded by the super-hierarchical department that treats tenured and tenure track faculty as the only deserving members.

Sigh... I feel stuck for life in this in-between space! There is no way out!

And... just like that, it feels easy to blog again. This is what most of the writing in this space has been for the past 15 years, the fruit of despair or stress or a profound need to work through stuff... it's very therapeutic, really! And, in spite of the utter lack of readers, even if just for myself (because it helps me process things), I will probably blog more often for a while.

I guess I've reached "the end of my rope" right now and my last resort is blogging. I hope it helps somehow!

November is almost over and I didn't blog once (till now)! :-(

I blame it all on being forced to use a laptop, something that I don't like much at all, since my oldest takes over the desktop computer for hours for Minecraft or gaming during his free time -- which coincide with the hours I would be working at home in the evening. I am thoroughly enjoying the one brave friend who is still blogging daily in November and making me a tiny bit wistful for the good old days of NaBloPoMo. Oh dear... I have FIVE labels for that in my sidebar, from 2007-2011, I didn't know I had quit it in 2011, how depressing! But I did it a few more times all 30 days from 2013-15, I stopped in 2016. HA! That coincides with the time when we moved the desktop from the office upstairs (which became Kelvin's bedroom) to the family room on the first floor.

Anyway... yeah. These days I journal on two separate journals, but I haven't yet given BuJo a try. I'm considering. I had no idea the author had created it to help him manage his ADHD -- this is precisely what I need! Help managing mine. Sigh...

I went to check BuJo and some articles about it and got distracted from writing this post! ;-P And of course my son will soon come to use the computer (I was writing this earlier, late morning, by now I've done three loads of laundry, most of which I am attempting to line dry since the weather is nice, nearly 60 degrees.

What else has been going on? We had a lovely Thanksgiving with my brother-in-law's family coming and spending two days and a half with us. We spent 10 Thanksgivings with them from 2002-2013 before they moved to Egypt in 2014. They moved back to the U.S. last year and since then my BIL had to have his leg amputated to get rid of an extremely rare recurring cancer. He is doing incredibly well and we hope and pray that his cancer will be permanently gone now.

I'm not looking forward to the last two weeks of the semester, this break is always a little unsettling... but I will soldier on, and grade a lot and everything will end well as it always does.

Hopefully I'll blog again a few more times before the year is out.

Sad for Brasil :-(

Brazil elected a new president today and it was a really difficult choice, people were between "a rock and a hard place" with the two most hated candidates running against each another in the second round, but in min, and a lot of other people's opinion, one of the options was way worse than the other.

The former president, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached two years ago and the former two term president Lula (Luís Inácio "Lula" da Silva) is currently in jail. Their party, PT, Partido dos Trabalhadores (the Worker's Party) has been caught in a serious corruption scheme and a brave judge in my home state of Paraná, Sérgio Moro, has been prosecuting, charging, and putting the guilty ones in jail. If you want to understand the background of the investigation, you can watch the Netflix series The Mechanism. It's so depressing I haven't been able to watch it all, just the first episode. The runner up to today's second round of the election was Fernando Haddad who was appointed the candidate for PT after Lula was unable to run and he lost mostly because of the people's hatred for the party.

The winner, sigh... I don't like to say his name, the same way I avoid saying #NotMyPresident's name like the plague, so I'll just link to him. This man  (#AlsoNotMyPresident) is a former Army Captain and he was a congressman for 27 years and did basically NOTHING. He is pretty outspoken like the U.S. president and has made many outrageous statement which were racist, homophobic, misogynistic, really bad stuff. He's also in favor of allowing people to have guns (guns aren't freely allowed in Brazil), torture, the death penalty, the police having free agency to kill criminals (which it kind of already does in Brasil), and many other controversial things. He says he is a Christian and has the support of most evangelicals. Poor people and minorities, particularly Black and gay Brazilians are really upset by all the hatred unleashed by his candidacy. Some of his statements show fascist tendencies too. Hatred was running so high that he was actually stabbed with a knife when campaigning back in September.

He won partly because of the rampant fake news campaigns in social media. Brazilians are apparently the most gullible people in the planet, who most believe in fake news. I cannot find any articles about this in English, but there were a few in Portuguese. The main reason he won, though, is everyone's desire to get rid of the worker's party. Many people didn't like him, but voted against the other party. Others actually literally say that he's "a myth" and that he's going to save Brazil from PT and make it succeed.

This election destroyed lifelong friendships and pitted family members against each other.This whole thing is just too sad and upsetting. I just pray that the situation gets better in Brazil. :-(

It's not funny anymore! :-(

Over ten years ago I wrote a post about a parody of the classic children's book Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown) that made fun of George W. Bush and when I clicked on the link to the publisher on that post, I discovered that there will be a new book from the same authors about our current president whose name I don't want to even say. It will be released soon, and it has lines such as:
In the very classy room
There was a golden mirror
And a silver spoon
And a broadcast of --

A half-baked story from a fake newsroom.

This kind of parody was funny to me in 2008, but ten years later and with that man as president. It's not anymore. :-(

The past two weeks have been hard, and made harder by the presidential election in Brazil (the front runner is as bad as the U.S. president, if not worse). It's all so very upsetting. How the country and the political climate has changed in the past ten years. Who knew the backlash for 8 years of a Democratic African American president would be so fierce and devastating?

White Americans feel threatened and are doing all they can to stem the threat of a future with a majority of (brown) immigrants and their descendants in this country. This has been a central goal of everything that this government has done since January 2017. It's way too depressing...

"Wasted" Seeds?

OK, since I broke the "blogger's block," and wrote about "sowing seeds" let me write some more on a related topic.

So today I received an email related to a "seed" that actually was thrown my way, but maybe I'm just wasting it. I was supposed to write (to have written by now) a paper for a book, a "handbook" in the subject area of my dissertation. It was an "invited" publication and I was excited about it, BUT... there were many stumbling blocks:

• I my email communications with the editors suffered numerous delays (I didn't hear back from them, then I dind't write back);
• I never received a contract from them as they said they would send, and 
• I had the hardest time retrieving my dissertation data from an old and inaccessible computer (only late July my husband broke through) -- I couldn't write the paper without that data;
• an academic friend who is tenured and trying to mentor me mentioned that "Handbook" papers aren't worth very much in the grand scheme of things, which took the rest of my already embattled/non-existent enthusiasm for the project.

And today I get this email. Strange timing. I actually got an earlier email on August 3 and I was surprised by it. These are the "last call" emails I had received from other people before.

But I actually don't know if it would be worth it trying to write this thing. It wouldn't be extremely hard, but it wouldn't be easy either. Sigh...

What do I do? I think I will reply to the email saying I need more time, but also that, I don't know... I never got any kind of contract, so is it really going to be published? Sigh... and I also feel kind of ashamed that I didn't follow up to several of the emails. I do have the excuse of not having the data, which is true, but still.

I feel such a failure! Sigh... I have this feeling I bring these things upon myself. Partly because of my poorly handled ADHD, partly because of...? well, I'll blame on the ADHD. It makes me feel slightly better. And it's not totally a lie.

Glimpse of my Food Vocab Presentation

Edited to add another image that I hope will work.
This is the first page of the presentation that pulled an all nighter to prepare. It looks kinda nice, no? I used MS Word, so I inserted text boxes the size I wanted and pasted an image copied from the internet inside each text box. An insane amount of work. Adding text would have taken almost double the time because in order to place text exactly where I wanted I would have to add smaller text boxes within the bigger ones. I LOVE what I can do with their boxes on Word!

Só, since the students had a handout with all the words in their hands, theycoile follow along. Now, if I make a recording pronouncing the words with quick comments, they can take advantage of his resource on their own. How could I “make” them do it?

GAH... I do not like teaching language, it’s so boring! :-( Its not what signed up for to do for life. I started doing that back when I was 19-23 (I taught English as a foreign language), but didn’t even get a PhD in a language/literature and didn’t teach language in graduate school. I’m stuck with it because it’s he only thing available for me... I don’t really “stand out” in other crowded field such as teaching world lit which is what I was trained to do.

Sigh...

My apologies for whining. I am thankful I have a job (not just a lame job, but a full time one), I promise I am. I mostly enjoy it. But I definitely long for more. A year ago I cried before teaching one of my literature classes. I can’t think about it too much.

Ok, enough of this disheartening discussion. I just thought I’d let you take a peek at the results of my all-nighter! ;-)

NOOOOO!!!! Net Neutrality was Killed!!

A small victory one day (Doug Jones wins) and large setbacks the next day. How are we going to survive this horrible administration?

They are beginning to interfere with our lives in very tangible ways!!

Sigh... I don't even know what else to say, except that I feel powerless and that how can we effectively RESIST if big corporations and their profits are given more and more power over our lives?

I'm so angry! This anger and stress and daily worries will take its toll on all of us, seriously!

I have to go find more things to read, but this commentary is good.

P.S. it's like Brad, Jo's friend said, after Doug Jones's Alabama victory on Tuesday, we had to get a bad thing happen before the end of the week. We couldn't get both. :-(

Highly Curated Content versus Relatively Raw & Unflitered...

... or the Instagram/Pinterest versus the Blogger/WordPress generations.

Nothing like a scattered and hastily written blog post to dispel writer's block, I guess? ;-) ;-P

Yes, I know that smiley faces make me look less intelligent, but this is not a work email, and I don't care. Although I am bravely resisting the urge of adding emoticons to my emails to students. I still draw smileys on exams, though. ;-)


I have wanted to say this for a while and I wish I could write a highly edited and curated blog post, but a quick one will have to do, before the writer's block sets in again! (can you feel the despair in my voice?)
;-P

In any case, first of all, I think this is a generational difference... (that's why I added the "Aging" label -- I don't have one about different generations) younger people (and by that, I  mean folks 10-15 years younger than me) have a "thing" going. At least the sample of younger people that I know and interact with -- most are originally from Brazil, BTW. They are very intentional in the way they decorate their house, plan and execute their weddings, pose for photos, not to mention fashion choices. They also photograph everything daily life & events very selectively and at expert angles & lighting and post it to Instagram.

I guess it all started with Pinterest and the ability to curate content online (so people would find the same things cute & "fashion" would become even more uniform than it already is) and then Instagram made it easy to share one's highly photogenic choices and lifestyle.

There are some older people (although maybe still slightly younger than me) such as Dooce and other professional bloggers who have been very picture perfect in their online life, although not exactly like the younger people I know -- but those are the "professional" web content creators. Today, everyone looks perfect like that, I mean, at least the sample I'm exposed to.

One thing that is kind of scary to me is how fads and styles have become the same here and in Brazil. The style of wedding decoration and children's parties, for example... Wooden things, greenery, mason jars for drinking, naked cakes, hanging lights...

Sigh...

Can you tell I'm slightly irritated by all this perfection?

I miss words, many many words rather than pretty images. I miss raw feeling and relatively unfiltered thoughts. I still attempt to share them here, but I confess that I'm becoming more and more overwhelmed by the millennials that create such perfect content online now. I severely limit my exposure to such folks, only following a few people I know on Instagram, but even this small exposure already influences me.

Looking at their neutral colors, extremely beautiful party decor, lovely assortment of picture frames arranged on walls, is making me feel ugly and old and too colorful and LOUD, even.

I LOVE who I am, I love my funky style, all the colors, all the flowers, but sometimes I feel like I want some of that stereotypically beautiful style that today's younger generation likes.

A prime example is the new Magnolia line at Target. I have also been photographing things in this style for a while on my phone and I'll try to illustrate my point with photos later.

For now I just want to say that I really, really, REALLY miss the community of bloggers that I was active part of from 2005-2009, maybe 2010. I have some more thoughts about this (that have to do with the openness that came along the advent of blogging and that has now waned), but I'll try to share those later.

Have you noticed this new Pinterest/Instagram trend? What do you think?

Gotta Write Something! (And a Xmas Card brought to you by... Lowered Expectations!)

OK, I have FIVE posts sitting in the draft folder right now, all my latest posts, and about 5 more in draft since June.

I'm tired of thinking of the draft folder. I also think that the internet and my phone are exacerbating my ADHD to such a point that I'm becoming a useless person. Really.

So I've gotta write and publish something. ANYTHING!!

It's cold and I think that now that I've been back from my trip for a week I'm finally back to "normal" -- especially today that I finally took my medication again (it had run out a few days before my trip and I had not had time to fill the prescription and did so only yesterday).

And back to normal is not especially pleasant since I feel HORRIBLY guilty that I have a HUGE number of compositions and online work from my students that I haven't read and graded since the beginning of the semester. Yes, I am a horrible person and a horrible teacher. Sigh...

I hate online homework. I don't know how I can make that better. All the "PTSD" from the horrible University of Phoenix gig (from like 8 years ago!) is still a factor.

Ok, what else can I say?

We've decided to go to Montreal next week to visit my youngest brother-in-law and his family. Oldest son is suggesting we stop for a night or two in NYC and get a hotel in Manhattan.

Youngest son is grumbling that he hates cities and it will be torture (this is the poor kid that was "forced" to spend his 12th birthday in Manhattan with us last year -- MoMA (which he loved, BTW) and Top of the ROK.

What else? Oh, yeah, Last night I ordered our Christmas Card at Costco and we picked them up today. This is the photo paper one that I send to Brazil to be mailed to all our family and friends. I order extra-early so my mother-in-law can take them to Brazil for me for my mom to mail them out.

We had NO nice photos at all, so I used a photo taken at a sunset at the beach in FL (and the light looks horrible in the print out) and -- GASP!!! -- a SELFIE! How low have I gone!? A selfie in a Xmas card? Talk about lowered expectations!! Then I added two more photos -- one of our youngest son and I in San Francisco and the other a nice photo of K and Kelvin on my new phone. It's not too horrible.

That should be enough for one post.

I really don't know...

... why I'm not blogging more or, I mean, much, or at all.

There's no good reason, perhaps the main one is that I have the (probably correct) impression nobody reads anymore, it's no longer a community. And I HATE that I spend so much time on stupid Facebook because I want to continue to have some relationship with people I met through blogging.

Sigh... such a lame reason to waste time on social media!

Everything is going ok. My title at work has changed. It's supposed to make us feel less bad, or to make us almost believe that we actually have some professional dignity. It's the same title of TT faculty, with "General Faculty" attached at the end.

It's a cosmetic change. No pay raise, no other benefits. More work because some service will be required -- they need more people to populate committees that will "promote" other faculty to the same "fake" rank.

I am sorry if I am horribly bitter about all this. I've hardly had the courage to blog about it... it is what it is. I will, after my review next year, have some actual stability, and that's good, but I want to be able to take a semester leave without losing my job so my husband can take a sabbatical and we can go live in Europe for about 6 months. Maybe it will be possible -- but by then the kids will be older and probably won't come with us. :-(

I am not very happy about my teaching, as usual... but everything is going ok.

I have a trip coming up, but I hope to blog about that in a separate post.

My mom turns 77 in 4 days and my dad will be 80 in two weeks -- that's the reason of my trip, BTW.

OK, more later!

P.S. (ETA 10/24, 10:50 am) What makes me more depressed is that for our "promotion" only research about pedagogy counts. We have ZERO intellectual freedom. I mean, we can do some research, publish, present (no funds to go to conferences, BTW, only with grants that only let us apply for pedagogical stuff again), but it won't count. And this "lower," second-class pseudo tenure is becoming the norm. I know I should be thankful that 1) I have a full-time job; 2) I have a multi-year contract and hence higher pay; 3) I will actually have stability.

Sigh... why can't we do research too if we were trained for it and are passionate about it. Are we really such a threat to the tenure system? Is it our fault that there aren't enough jobs to go around and too many of us?

As I'm getting older and more bitter I begin to regret having gotten a PhD. WHAT FOR???? Academia is the worst, it really is. 

And I guess it makes perfect sense I haven't been blogging. I don't want to be whiny and annoying, so why even write here? :-(

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses!

I should be working on my garden, right now, and getting some sun on my shoulders to get lots of vitamin D... and I will, in a few minutes. I want to get some pesky thoughts out of my head first, though. I think it'll be therapeutic.

Having ADHD sucks, it really does. I love, love, love the hyperactive, creative, boundless energy (until it's gone) side of it. I like how my brain is all over the place and all the thoughts and unexpected connections I make. I feel very alive and full of interests, it's exciting! I hate the bad side of it, the fact that even on medication I can't start on things I hate to do, I can't do what I NEED to do.

I hate too many things about it and I don't want to focus on those here, although I already used the title of the post against myself -- my brain is an EXPERT, in finding excuses. As Heather would say (love, love, love her! I'm THRILLED she's back with a redesigned blog, it makes me happy and energized to blog more), my brain is the valedictorian of excuse-making.

Sigh...

So, yeah... I have recently remembered some excuses that are very valid, though. I'm having this horrible depressing professional crisis which is NOT the subject of this post, and I realized the other day that now the I'm taking medication (on and off), I have to make good on my promise to try to write academic papers (sigh...).   (I'd love to do it, as a matter of fact).

Back to gardening, though... all through last year I didn't weed one particular flower bed (one that I build with my own arms and hands years ago and that cost me a ridiculous 200+ dollars -- I should TOTALLY have just bought a ready-made raised bed at a store. [links/photos coming later]) and there were various excuses, but I think that this action stunted and basically killed a bunch of beautiful tulips. I'm very sad and upset.

OK, so now that I wrote this quick post I will go and take some photos to capture the "before" state of another flower bed and work on it for a while.

Then later... I'll get a haircut and highlights, how's that for a nice Spring day? (I may get a mani-pedi too, we'll see). ;-)

You'll never guess...

... how I spent this day, the "happiest Tuesday of the year" ;-)  It's easy to guess that I did NOT, in fact go to the Farmer's market as I was looking forward to.

I also could NOT sleep in for a few hours to catch up on sleep I decided to lose to see the new Brontë film. I turns out I had to go to the Brazilian consulate to notarize a copy of my Brazilian ID card so we can send it express to Brazil so that the process of figuring out my father-in-law's estate can proceed! :-(

It was just an extremely long day. Instead of driving for my regular maximum of 3h, I drove for 5+ (total), but I did get to go to IKEA!! And to a Brazilian store and also got to run some other errands.

I didn't get back home until 8:30 pm, though, so I'm trying to work some before I go to bed. I'm ready to crash, but I can't yet! :-(

A rare day

Edited on 4/4/17 3:17 am
 
Today is a rare day, [because] I get to teach about my dissertation subject. One of the three authors [I wrote about]. Who knows when I'm going to do that again?

That's why it's bittersweet. Nice, and at the same time heartbreaking.

Today I thought I want to write a book about this author, and I don't care whether I'm not supposed to, but I will try.

I don't want to be silenced by a system that prevents me from being a true scholar. {later rephrasing of same sentence}: I want to do it [write a book] to defy a system that prevents me from being a true scholar and sees me as less. I want to make mine the slogan nevertheless, against all odds, she persisted.


Note: I spoke this to my phone, sentence by sentence (that's why the first line of the fourth paragraph was accidentally the first line when I "published" this) on the first 10 minutes of my drive to work (before I got on the highway. I never do this on the highway).

Then I cried for about five minutes and I was really depressed for a few days afterwards. O 3/6, I started writing a post titled "Blame it on the STUPID USELESS PAIN INFLICTING PhD (again, and again, and again)" which began "I hate hate hate my life right now." And right then I did, for a few anguished moments. I even had a sad [to me] conversation with my husband about all this, and then, after a few days, the negative, dark feelings dissipated... for now at least. It's hard, but only unbearably painful for a few fleeting moments. I have lots of other things in my life. More later.

Blogging in 2017...

... is lonely and discouraging.

But blogging is one of "my favorite things!!!" :-(

BTW the label/song-nod, is wrong because I have A LOT of favorite things, really, not a few by any stretch of the imaginations... shall I list?
... traveling!! (planning trips, being out and about)
... my sons & my family
... colors! (greens and aqua and rainbow colors, rainbow things, rainbow anything!)
... clothes and shoes and cute things
... music
... cooking for people! (my "drug of choice," remember?)

yeah... and much more.

Back to blogging in 2017, though... sigh... it's frustrating to say the least. I made so many friends through blogging! It literally changed my life (I'd like to a post from 2006 -- ELEVEN years ago! -- but why? I know how to find it, nobody will read)

And now... all that I can do to keep up with these dear and thoughtful friends I made is to hang out in STUPID Facebook! :-( And since I hardly ever post there, those friends, who no longer read my blogs or any blogs (I'd like to hope, 'cause it's very sad to think they still read other people's but just got tired of mine or something, it hurts my feelings, not to mention my self-esteem which is already pretty bad!) don't know what's going on with me much.

I blog for myself though, the same way that I still keep journals -- a daily one, writing a few lines about each day (generally once a week on Saturdays) and sometimes on another one I can write more. I re-read my journals regularly and I also re-read old blog posts quite often. It is a wonderful way to keep track of one's life -- and also the lives of my sons to a lesser degree (given that I've never blogged much about them, as I wrote on this lovely post from 2013).

So, yeah... I'm glad Jamie is still around (and sent me this most beautiful, absolutely GORGEOUS shawl I have yet to blog about) as well as What Now? Thank you SO MUCH to both of you for still reading and commenting!

I love to blog and I'll keep on doing. I just don't know if I can trust Google not to delete Blogger. I need to back up this blog somewhere safe and I hope Google will let us know ahead of time if it decides to shut this free service (for which I am very thankful) down.

I want to give an update on the refugees, since What Now? asked, but it will have to be another post. I should be grading now, but I'm blogging, obviously. Classic procrastination tool!

The Best Class Ever or...

... sheer torture? Because it could be "the last" for a long, long while... who knows how long. :-(

I'm teaching a lit class because "the person above me"* is on leave this semester. But that person just emailed me last Friday to take away the only 3000 level class I teach so we can offer three beginner level classes next semester and try to grow the program. It's good to grow the program, but... sigh... it feels like my losing ground here.

* the no-longer-that-new hire, who is younger than me, has less experience, and is not from my country (a white dude from California, a most typical American academic).

There is a flicker of hope after all the angst of last year (which I was never able to blog about in a straightforward manner for various reasons). [WHOA, there are 126 posts with the "Working in the Margins" label? Wow, I write a lot about this depressing subject, don't I? Only "Academic Life," "Job search" {mostly my  husband's various ones}, and "Family Travels" {yay! winner!} have more posts!] Maybe, just maybe, some of us lecturers will be granted non-tenure track academic ranking/titles. I'm not counting on it and, if my "demotion" to basic level classes is any indication, things aren't really going well for me in this department.

I will try to be hopeful, though, as best as I can. And in the mean time, enjoy every minute of my amazing class. Six bright and motivated girls, readings and films I feel very comfortable teaching. I think it'll be awesome. YAY!

. . .

I don't know how to title this.

i don't feel like capitalizing anything... as if small letters could convey better how scared and sad i feel inside. more like disconsolate. expecting the worse.

why are there lots of people who keep reassuring everyone that this is no big deal?

this is not normal, it hasn't happened before. such an unprepared, sick man who picked questionable people to help him dismantle everything...

i've never really checked the news, but now i do even less. i may have to stop listening to npr. is npr even going to survive? or any other humanities and arts initiatives that depend on government funding?

sigh...

government in this country is about to change forever. i saw a headline saying that there will be permanent changes in civil rights laws...

the rich will get even richer and polute even more

those who most need help with their health and their kids' education won't have it

. . .

In the meantime, our small network of "house churches" has just signed up to sponsor a THIRD family of refugees from Syria who arrive in 4 days. The first two arrived before the holidays and we were so busy with grading that we couldn't help at all :-( though we donated furniture, money, raised money and donations from my husband's department.

The families, both from Aleppo, if I'm not mistaken: a young couple (she in early 20s, him 30) with three small children (3, 2 and not even 1). A middle aged couple with four kids, twin boy and girl aged 14, autistic boy aged 12 and 9 year old boy -- they had been in Turkey for two, three years and the children had never been allowed to go to school.

The new family is an older couple (50s-60s) and a son in his 20s.

Refugees are being hurriedly brought into the country by agencies before it's too late, before the door closes. I will concentrate in helping the refugees (I haven't met them yet, actually), I will refuse to let this bring me down.

Resist, we need to resist.