Lately, I've been caught even more than usual in that really aggravating zone of "too tired to sleep," at least, too tired to sleep very well. Tons of work responsibilities have been the central part of every day, for sure. It's just one of those busy times of year. I'm not really meshing very well with my lead teacher for biology, who is still kind of hammering the course together, in spite of teaching it for the third year. I see a great many gaps and things I would love to expand on. He takes the general approach that the students are only able to do so much, and it seems like he dumbs down content a lot. I take the opposite approach, so it's been an interesting tension. I am not used to following another teacher's lead on a class, really, Considering that I am creating an environmental science class and a senior chemistry class, however, I'm grateful that the vast majority of the biology course is already created and I am just doing what I'm told so to speak.
A little more than a week and I'll get a couple weeks off. I am looking forward to traveling. If I had money, I would just travel all the time. It's been great also having a place for the first time since December 2019, and there is this weird temptation to just stay in bed for days when this break arrives. But it's just a fantasy, and the reality wouldn't be very good really.
The new connection person ought to have an initial. M is what I'll go with. M and I have been talking via FB Messenger, and one phone call. I tried to schedule another call but then just had to cancel, last weekend, as I wrote about earlier. It's interesting observing myself, as I learn more about this person. Mostly I discover myself being wary and really keeping up my defenses, while at the same time leaving space for interaction. It's like discovering the extent of an injury only by making contact with something outside myself. Hot damn, the affair really fucking fucked me the fuck up. Basically. Untangling all that is happening on new levels now, and I'm getting some clearer perspective for sure on the ways I got burned. I feel like I'm still in relationship rehab from the whole experience. Alternately fragile and bitter. M is wary as well, for excellent reasons of her own. I think it's important to meet in person. I'm looking forward to it, even though it goes against my deep-seated desire to isolate from all of humanity for the rest of time.
Paper number 2 from the diss was accepted by a high impact journal that is the journal of record for all of botanical nomenclature, so that's cool. I am feeling so swamped by my high school teaching duties that the idea of actually doing legit research again someday seems far out of reach. I still have extensive revisions to do on article 3 and motivation for *that* is at negative levels.
December blues. I saw that all of the northern part of the US, including Minnesota, will be able to see the Aurora Borealis tonight. I got that impulse I get several times a day, to tell L. Of course, we are completely out of touch, and so I had to do what I do every time, which is dismiss the impulse and just let it go. It's a better dynamic than trying to be in a friendship. I am now wondering if I will ever be ready for that.
