This is definitely the kind of teaching job that demands much. Not that I'm complaining, since the students are interested, motivated, and pick up whatever I throw at them, and my colleagues are interesting, etc. It does feel off kilter, doing all of this remotely. We had an end of trimester check in with my 10th grade biology students today, and some good feedback. Things seem to be going about as well as can be expected in remote learning of a very hands on, mucky science topic. Fortunately, my co-teacher and I ordered some lab supplies to be sent home, and there are three labs coming up soon, two around photosynthesis and one involving respiration and yeast, the old classic where they will collect CO2 in a balloon from a jar of active yeast. In between 13 hour days, mostly I am feeling adrift. Sometimes incredibly angry at L. Or at my other ex, A. Two exes to be angry at. Nice. Sometimes I think of L and a sentence like this flashes across my mind: "fuck you, you stupid fucking idiot." Quite pleasant. I have no idea exactly why anger and even contempt seems to be the general emotional mood around this past relationship stuff, in particular. My other ex, I continue to feel schadenfreude over. I told her so. The dude was bad news. He fucked up her life. I wish I could at least derive some pleasure from being smug and from having been correct. Alas, it's just an unpleasant feeling. I'm not skilled at being angry a lot of the time and tend to work toward equilibrium as soon as possible. But these sort of acrid feelings have been persisting the past few days. Here's an image of a 3D model of RuBiSco, Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase. It ought to look very familiar, as it is the most abundant enzyme on Earth. It is the enzyme responsible for the first step of carbon fixation in plants during photosynthesis. Hello, RuBiSco. And thanks for fixing all that carbon, maybe preventing our extinction. I'm trying to figure out how to spend my break in a couple weeks on either side of the visit from 12/25 to 12/27. Still no solid plans. I've been vaguely thinking of driving way way way down to Padre Island, where it's a balmy 70-80 degrees during the day. I bet it will be utterly flocked with humanity, however. More research is needed.