captured

This week seems to have *WHOOSHED* on by. Maybe because it was a short one, starting with a holiday?

Things are back to business. My tutor schedule has filled - almost to the brim - with another batch of fun students. The mathing commences.

I mentioned that I would start sometimes bringing my bike cam along on bike rides, to possibly catch a hooligan or two. I'm glad to say that I've taken a few lovely rides  with no captures of crashes or criminal activity.

On Sunday, I did see the cutest thing I've seen all week. Yes, it remains in the top spot.

This little boy was on this teeny recumbent, hitched to (I assume) Dad's bike. I'd never seen such a small hitched tow-behind. Usually kids that small are in those little trailers.

But there he was, pedaling away, I'm sure providing no power whatsoever.  But as we passed each other, his eyes trained with mine the whole encounter, he had the cutest smile. Very proud of himself, being part of the fray, as if saying

"Hello, fellow bicycle rider!"

 Now it's off to work for another morning of testing... testing... testing.

spies and lame ducks

Happy Winter Solstice, y'all. We're "celebrating" by watering our trees? Really, we're so hardup for precipitation around here, had to fire up the hose.

I worked my last day of the year in the testing center yesterday. We're closed now until Jan. 2nd. We had an unfortunate turn of events this week in that we're pretty sure we got busted by a secret shopper.

These companies we administer professional tests for will occasionally send secret shoppers posing as test candidates to make sure we're doing all the security things properly. Someone got into the testing room with a cell phone.  Oooh, that's baaaaad.

I wasn't there, just heard about it after the fact. At least my coworkers noticed the cell phone at the testing workstation during the test, but by then, the damage was done. 

It's just really awkward to ask some stranger why the metal detector is going off near their crotch, and then, to investigate further! Apparently, this is what happened, and it was explained away with, "Oh, must be my belt buckle", and that was that. 

I recall a time I was scanning a woman candidate. She was a rather "stout" woman, and my detector went off at her mid back. I let it go without question because I assumed she had on a hefty bra with some serious hardware holding it shut, and I didn't want to go there.

I mean, if she was gonna hide something, she wouldn't hide it in her back bra strap, right? Right?? 

From now on, I'll just ask. And yes, take off the belt, let's do it again. 

On a happier note, I also had my last tutor session with my one high schooler. I mainly just tutor the college students now, but "D" is a holdover from about a year and a half ago when her mom contacted me because I'd tutored D's older sister. 

D is now a senior, and when we gathered online this week, she started the session with a sheepish, "So... some exciting news...". Really, she said it so shyly, I wasn't sure if she'd actually said anything at all. 

But then she continued, "I got early acceptance into my first choice university this week". Oh, goody!

I'm very happy for her, such a nice kid and hard worker. Her big challenge now is to make it through her lame duck semester of high school.

fork yeah!

Another busy week down. I feel I've neglected the blog and blog reading (as well as housework, but that's allowed) this past week. BUT the semester is now finished. Onto the next thing.

I had a PEO thing yesterday. Fun, but yet another obligation. I look forward to a relatively obligation-less week ahead. 

As such, I was over at the site where I do my other tutoring. There's a questionnaire for setting preferences and such, and I noticed some strange wording:

Forks yes, I have access to a car? I have no car, but use forks as a substitute? I'm interested in online tutoring... with forks?

So I sent a non-urgent message to the helpdesk informing them of the forks. Right after clicking "send", I thought, "hmmmm, what if the problem is at my end? Some weird glitch in the cache?". So I cleared my cache, then logged in again.

Yep, the "Forks" have been replaced with "Yes".  Aw, Fork.
Now, the helpdesk is going to see my weird issue and roll their eyes. Thankfully, I included the screenshot shown up there. I swear I wasn't hallucinating. 

So happy December. On a recent night, I awoke around 2am, realizing it was December already. And I thought, "*GASP*, Oma's gonna send her annual box of diabetes!"

Every holiday season since forever, my step-mother-in-law has sent us a boatload of cookies, candies, etc. They're store bought, nice quality, but SO much. Especially in recent years, even after offloading much of it to our now adult kids, most of it goes to the landfill. 

I decided to head her off at the pass, emailed acknowledging her thoughtfulness, but pleeeeeez, no more box of diabetes. She responded promptly, thanking me for my "honest feedback".

I was, however, not able also to ask her not to send me another desk calendar, which she has traditionally sent and which goes straight to the thrift store donation - while the year is just beginning. 

Baby steps.

a little psycho

 

Hey, how's everyone's week going? 

Better than Lillie's I hope!

Tutor Boss asked all us tutors to double check with our students to confirm their sessions since this is the last week of the semester as they head to finals. 

It's a mix. Some are raring to go, some just want it over. 

I have a vague recollection of finals time during my undergrad years. One year worked out particularly nicely because my roommate made hella messes when she was stressed, and I fell into clean freak mode when I was stressed. Perfect combination! 

She studied while trashing the place, I studied while cleaning. We rocked those finals, and our apartment got a sort of makeover.

We're busy over in testing as per usual this time of year. Then, after Monday, things will quiet down. I'm on the lookout for a white elephant gift for our party scheduled for next Wednesday. We looked up the meaning and origin of "white elephant"

"white elephant \WYTE-EL-uh-funt\ noun. 1 : a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit."

Well, that covers a whole gamut. 

I'm on a mission, much like this goose friend I encounted on a recent morning.

I don't know the goose's mission, but it was on it like a boss.

says there's room for maybe just one more

Yay for Saturday! Sheesh, this was a busy week. I'm glad to have survived.

The students have all of next week off at the college. Testing is running through Wednesday, but my tutor schedule is happily empty.

Don't get me wrong, I do typically enjoy tutoring. But as can be expected, the students who sign up for tutoring are the ones who struggle, not only with the coursework, but with stress and anxiety in general, and I'm no therapist.

But really, it's kind of an odd mix. Some are older students who haven't been in a classroom for a while, so just need some extra guidance. Then there are the younger ones who were academically abandoned by the pandemic and other "systemic failures" during their high school years. 

It's a bit of an old story here - I'm sure I blogged about it as I went through it. But in a nutshell, my degree is engineering, I was a happy engineer for several years, we had kids and I became a happy mom and former engineer, and I picked up tutoring along the way.

About 10 years ago, I enrolled in a program at the university that was a pathway for people with STEM degrees to become high school math and science teachers. Seemed like all paths led me in that direction, except...

I learned that I have NO desire to teach at a high school. I mean... the education classes I was taking felt lame to me, for lack of a better word. The atmosphere at the schools we observed didn't gel with me. I even took a non-teaching job at a "nice" high school and couldn't stand it more than one semester.

But hey, it's not them, it's me. I know! I do know wonderful teachers who love their jobs and their schools, and more power to 'em. It's just not my bag.

I shared that summary with one of my tutees this week after she asked me about it. She was enticing me to take on a next level class that I currently don't tutor, but she will be taking next semester. 

"Do it, we need you!", she implored. Seems the only tutors for that course are retired instructors who only tutor online, while I'm okay meeting in person.

I'll probably do it. I'm reteaching the subject to myself to slough off the dust by Spring semester. As we talked, she asked if I'd ever want to teach a class at the college. People have asked me that before, and it seems like there's always openings for math teachers. But... ew. I enjoy tutoring. Teaching is a whole 'nother can of worms. It really has very little appeal to me.

Part of that is likely because... I turned a ripe 60 years old this week. *ock, my bones*. Ain't got no time nor patience for BS. Teachers put up with a lot of BS, while tutors show up, wearing halos.

In true old lady form, here's a coupla pics of a cat. Wolfgang's cat Maisey, whom I've visited daily this past week while on food duty.

I'm happy to make it to 60. Let it be known, I have no desire to do 60 more.

ground control

Happy November! It's a beautiful fall morning here. I partook of the popular pastime known as rake-all-the-damn-leaves for a while. Now I'm sluggishly chilling. Sluggishly because maybe allergies combined with the flu shot I got yesterday. Plus, apparently, my dependence on caffeine, which I've not yet had today.

I'm not a fan of changing clocks, but I'm feeling rather appreciative of the extra hour we get this weekend. But, let me wrap up the week, bullet style

• At the testing center, we underwent required "de-escalation" training. Out of curiosity, I'd asked Boss why we were required to do this, as it had never been part of the plethora of other required trainings. His answer, "Something happened at one of the other testing centers, and I've already told you too much"

Well, okay then. Bring on the training. Presented by a couple of our security guys (Work Study loved it), it was good common sense reminders. We all felt pretty good about how well we work together to de-escalate such situations.

The VERY NEXT day, dude bullies his way in, gets all upset because he can't keep his cellphone with him (?!) while taking his test. Spends 9 minutes failing a test he was given 2 hours to complete, flings a chair (it was on wheels, so it just went for a fun roll, not hitting anything/ one), and storms out with a parting, "F*CK Y'ALL!!"

Not gonna lie, my calming strategies from the prior day's training took a back burner to my inner seething. Same for my coworkers Blossom and Sarge. But we kept it together enough to, at least, not escalate things. From his parting salutation, I was reminded of the pride banner hanging over the disabilities services office:

And I thought, "Well, how wondefully inclusive of him"

• On the tutoring side of things, I was talking with one of my tutees. He's majoring in mechanical engineering and told me he's interested in becoming "an agricultural engineer on Mars". Whoa.

Apparently, there's a fair amount of research going into the colonization of Mars. Still, I think it'll be a while. But hey, he's young, and it's nice to have a focused goal.  

Meanwhile, I struggle to grow a decent garden here on Earth.  

gone fishin'

"Find something beautiful to look at, and spend a few minutes contemplating it. You already know how to create beauty, and that's a start"

So sayeth my horoscope app for today. Yes, I have a horoscope app. I don't know squat about astrology, but heard of the app and downloaded it just for grins a few weeks ago just to see what it would say.  It gave this advice after "telling" me that I'm over-identifying with other people. What?

I had two tutor appointments this morning. Appointment number one showed up and informed me she's withdrawing from the class because the teacher can't teach and she's over it. Appointment number two showed up stating he has to pass his test today, or he's withdrawing from the class - then he opened his backpack to realize he didn't bring his class notebook or his notecard he's allowed for the test. 

An unproductive day for me so far. I should find something beautiful to look at, already.

In the meantime, I will contemplate these tutees. I know Tutee1's teacher. She seems okay, but then I've never taken a class from her. Tutee2 is a nice enough guy, a little impatient with things in general, but not a hopeless case. 

I suspect, as I'm only hearing their sides of the stories, that their struggles are not solely due to their instructors. The pandemic didn't help this generation, academics-wise.

I have three more appointments today, hopefully things will become more productive.

In the meantime, I had some playtime. I'm not inktobering this year. It became not as fun after instagram changed their algorithms, and my interest lagged. But I saw the prompt for today was "Camp", so partook of a getaway.

A  depiction of a thing originally created by someone else. 

Now I'm off to meet with Tutee3. What's in the stars?

babies and baubles

Another tutor day ahead. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I only tute. The other weekdays are some combo of testing and tutoring. 

One of my students is a mid-30s single mom. She's got a toddler and has been breaking free of the baby dad for the last few months. She moved to a new place last week, changed her phone plan, life is good.

So she was telling me how she's taking a chemistry class online. This is allowed probably as a by-product of covid. Because chemistry classes include a lab component, she's able to do her labs at home. The equipment - whatever it is - is sent through the mail.

She'd signed up for the class while still living with baby dad, now she's got a new address. She told me how she called the lab gear suppliers, told them the situation, and explained, "When it arrives at my previous address, that f*cker will likely just throw it away..."

No worries. Happens more often than you'd think. Sadly.

Another late 30s tutee is returning to college after many years out of school. She's sort of this zenny, (that a word?) spiritual type. She told me she teaches yoga and is into numerology. She's very jangly when she arrives - as in she wears various jewelry that jangles. Bauble-laden earrings and bracelets. She does have a rather calming presence about her. Makes me wonder what Steffie the Good Witch of Best Buy would say about her aura. 

Anyway, we were working on her math homework when I informed that "ten to the zero is equal to one". She stared at me

I went on to say, "any number raised to the zeroth power is one". The staring continued, so I did too.

"100 to the zero is one, ten bazillion gajillion to the zero is one, pi to the zero is one..."

At this point she burst out laughing. She thought that was the most hilarious and wonderful thing. When the concept came up again, she burst out laughing again. I'd never realized how joyous that little math tidbit could be.

Or maybe she was a bit high?

Speaking of which... our Colorado recreational marijuana smoking room screen house is pretty much done. Outdoor lights and required outlets have been installed, the city will come for the final inspection probably today.

It's already so much nicer back there - no longer the surface of Venus in full sun. I won't miss shoveling the snow off of it either, I bet. 

post, parade, party

The good news: we have a new mailbox - whoo hoo

The not as good: we have to go to the post office to get our key to the new mailbox.

Oh well, gives purpose to our Saturday. Our mailbox is one of those multi-boxes for about 12 homes on the block. The old one crapped out - or was tampered with? - and had to be replaced. So looks like we'll go on a walk with the post office as the destination. This is what we've become?

Classes started this week at the college, and things got busy! My tutor schedule is already nearly filled. I'm not sure if that's because more students are requesting tutors or if we have fewer math tutors than last year, but I like it!

Recall that my campus tutor boss abruptly resigned mid-spring semester. We flailed about to finish out the semester then managed to limp along over the summer semester. We did have coordinators at the other campuses as a safety net, but the coordinator position for our campus has finally been filled. I have yet to meet her, but clearly, she knows of my existence.

[Tour de Fat] is today. It's a rambunctious time at a local brewery - that same brewery that hosts the outdoor spin classes I came upon last weekend. From the website, Tour de Fat is...

"a costumed bicycle parade followed by a party at New Belgium Brewing with music, entertainment, contests and games"

SOURCE

Yeah, I suppose that sums it up nicely.  Magnum and I checked it out a couple of years ago. Lots of fun for everyone. I bet we'll see costumes while out and about today, but we don't have plans to get into the thick of it. I don't have a costume or a weird bicycle. 

The post office will have to do. We'll try to make it weird.

Bunny, Trixie, Raul, Jerry, Penny

One more week of semester left. Is it obvious I'm counting the days? It's been a good semester, I'm just ready to have a short break from all the meth math. I was talking with one of my fellow tutors, "Bunny", last week. She was speaking of one of her students who is often late or no shows. On that particular day, the student had actually texted Bunny in advance to let her know she was running late.

"Maybe I taught her more than math this semester", Bunny observed. 

I'll remember to do that.

This past week was a good one, feels like it was productive enough

• Magnum and I had some documents we needed to have notarized for our lawyer in Colorado Springs. No, we're not getting a divorce, we have a will and such that we'd recently updated. We went to our credit union to sign the papers with a Notary Public there.

Our wills include a clause, which the lawyer refers somewhat jokingly to as "The Raul and Trixie Clause". It says that, for example, if I keel over and Magnum runs off with a stripper, our kids remain the beneficiaries and the stripper has no claim to anything when Magnum keels over. So "Trixie" refers to the stripper scenario, and "Raul" to some equally distasteful hook up of my own. 

I remember, at the time of the lawyer's explanation, thinking to myself, "hmmm, I know some Raul's who are good guys. Maybe don't call it that", but whatever. So last week as we were tediously signing off on the updates, I noticed that our notary's name was actually Raul - stars aligning for further vindication. And I doubt he would care to run off with a widowed me anyway.

• There's a [cute art supply store] here in town that I'd never been to. I knew if I went in there, I'd buy something I didn't need. Well, yesterday I went in for the first time because I needed a specific sketchbook. Magnum and I were on a coffee walk, and it was right there.
  
  

I broke in the new sketchbook with them apples.

The little store was pretty much as I expected - well stocked with all sorts of toys and with a friendly staff. 

And I only bought the one item I'd gone in there for. 

Yes, I can do this.

And now a Penny update: recall that our dog, Penny, went from being her usual ball of energy to a lethargic old lady dog seemingly overnight. 

Well, she laid around for two days, and on the third day... well... she has risen. 

No clue as to what knocked her on her ass. It's nice to have her back

 

inks and perspective

October marches on! Leaves are in full fall mode around here now. Our young George (Maple in the front yard) is doing his thing along with the others. 

It's been a relatively busy month at work, but I'm still riding the inktober wagon. I'm surprised to have only missed one prompt so far.

I don't like that Instagram no longer allows sorting tags by "top" and "recent". Now the choices are "top" and "recent top". Bummer. I used to like sorting by "recent" to find other nobodies like myself who aren't trying to be influencers and snag a bajillion followers. 

But, I guess it has to be done to give the moderators time to weed out the bad apples. 

I was thinking that one of my tutees was going to drop his class, which would've opened one of my time slots for another who was waiting. I told Tutor Boss, "Jake's hanging by a thread" because when we met last week, he just wasn't into it. In fact, he'd brought a friend. Initially, I thought the friend wanted some help with the class too, but they told me she'd already dropped the class as she'd fallen too far behind. 

Anyway, that was fine as I figured she wanted to sit in to brush up for when she retakes the class. But after an unproductive time, we called it a day. Then, alas, Jake was back this week, all motivated. 

He apologized for his inattentiveness last week by sharing, "I was going through some family issues". Furthermore, "My friend, Corey, was having a rough day too."  

Then he elaborated, "We have relatives in Israel".

Hello!! Well, that put things a bit more into perspective, and I was thinking, what was he doing at the math center at all last week?! 

He didn't say more about the "family issues", and I see it as a good sign that he's coming to school and studying hard. 

And here I am playing with my ink pens. 

fishing

Yesterday afternoon, I had a first meeting with a tutor student at the college. He's very nice and hard working and absolutely horrible at math. He told me he has dyscalculia in addition to dyslexia. Dyscalculia affects a person's ability to understand number-based information and math. I'd heard the word before, but never had a student diagnosed with it... as far as I know.

For example, he didn't know any mutliplication facts, couldn't count by 2's or 5's or even 10's. He struggled to add two single-digit numbers in his head. For me, as a math nerd, it was both appalling and fascinating.

After struggling through helping him prepare for a test he has today(!), I looked for more info.

Most of what I found pertained to strategies for kids in elementary school. What to do with a 20-year-old trying to do algebra?

I'll reiterate that he was super nice and friendly and "easy" to work with other than the horrid obstacle that is dyscalculia. I'll try to learn all I can to best help him before we meet again, and I feel a bit like Chief Brody

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

3. A blog post inspired by the word: coach

backup's time to shine

When I first started tutoring, I lived in Colorado Springs and worked for a company based in Denver. While I was there, they broke into the New Territory of live online classes. It was oh so groundbreaking! Those were the good old days of frequent disconnections and horrible lag and people not able to connect at all, not to mention the big headsets and wobbly webcams. 

The company issued me a Wacom tablet for sketching on the online whiteboard, and when I left, my boss told me "Eh, might as well just keep the tablet", which meant he didn't have to deal with getting me a shipping label and whatnot to get it back to the office. 

So I've continued to use that tablet without guilt since breaking away and becoming my own tutor boss. It still works fine to this day. Five years ago, I figured I should get a backup since that granny tablet must certainly be ready to keel over at any time.

The backup I got is a cute Wacom Intuos, smaller and thinner than Granny. As I mentioned, however, Granny just keeps on kickin'. The cute Intuos has sat on a shelf, moved, and sat on a new shelf since 2018.

Today, I saw it sitting there and decided to let it out to play. I'd never even opened it! What would Marie Kondo say?!

She'd probably say that I never "welcomed it home" or made the tablet feel that it "belonged" or something. And yes, I'm a Marie Kondo disciple, all about the joy sparking. But I failed that tablet.

I cracked that seal today, hooked it up, dowloaded the drivers and took it for a test drive. Thankfully, it didn't seem to hold a grudge for my unwelcoming disposition. That little Intuos is so nimble, so playful, so less crotchety than Granny!

So I drew my cat

Except, now... heck if I'm gonna use it for math.

keeping it classy

Rain is lightly falling outside my window. Birds are chirping. It sounds like those rainforest videos... in Colorado?  We've been getting a lot of rain this spring, and I'm not complaining. The weeds are taking over, but it's green foliage rather than brown dirt, so there we go. 

This week became somewhat busy. I guess with one day less in the work week, all else became concentrated. Summer classes started at the college on Tuesday, but testing has yet to be impacted much by that. 

On the tutor side of things, I've been getting requests from high schoolers, mostly from the east coast  (schools here are already on summer break) for final exam cramming. Yuck. They didn't learn the material well enough during the semester and also didn't learn that they can't cram it all into a 2-hour tutor sesh. 

Moving on. Boss has mostly moved to his new office at one of the other campuses. Yay! The vibes we're getting from the crew at  his new location are quite grumbly, not surprisingly. God help 'em. I'm quite interested to see how this is all going to play out over the next few months. In the meantime, Boss's non-presence at our office is delightful.  Omg, so much.

I plan to catch up on a few things this weekend, including blog reading, after the busy week. Personal blogs have given way to vlogs, tiktoks, etc. 

We bloggers are the Classics!

nerdz, forgotten and steamed

A couple of weeks ago, temps got to about 80 F. Hot. I stashed most of the winter clothes and brought out the summer collection. 

As expected, that jinxed the whole thing, and this week we got back to 30's and snow. Not bunches of snow, though. Just enough for muddy pawprints throughout the house.  It won't stop the impending heat.

Yesterday, Magnum and I bundled up for an old-folks-go-get-coffee walk. We decided to dust off our geocaching archives, we haven't gone geocaching probably since before covid. 

I was surprisingly able to remember the username and password and learned that we'd logged 97 caches. Three more and we'd hit triple digits. Excitement ensued.

We noticed a couple of caches along the way back home, so set out to find them. In our freshly caffeinated states, we managed to make quick, satisfying work of the little treasures. So here we sit at 99.

Geocache no. 99 for the nerdz

At work, I guess Boss's status has finally been upgraded to reflect his promotion. A new nametag - we refer to it as the "vanity plate" - arrived for him last week.  And now it appears as though there is no one to approve time sheets for us lowly part-timers - a.k.a. all of us except for Assistant Boss. 

There's been no talk about who or what will be in place of Boss's previous position, but I'm at least expecting to get paid next payday per someone's approval?  We have job titles, but maybe we should just start going by "The Forgotten".

The semester is winding down, stress levels are high among the tutees. Although some tutees don't seem as fired up as others, suggesting they're already planning for a do-over next semester. As a student, I don't recall ever considering taking a class more than once, but I see it happen with surprising frequency. 

In other breaking news, I made steamed rice instead of boiling it on the stovetop (no thanks, I don't want a rice cooker)

It came out perfect. Why had I not thought of this sooner?

rungs

I was going to go out and run around in nature a bit this morning. But nature includes a thin but thorough coating of ice, so here I am listening to the furnace blasting away. Oh well, portions of the house need cleaning anyway. 

Note that I'm not doing that either.

I'll go into work in a few hours, where reorg is happening. Boss's job is open, apparently, since Boss got moved up a notch. Assistant Boss is reluctantly applying. Reluctantly, because he's said he doesn't really want the job - is happy in second place - but doesn't want some "unknown" manager stepping in. He used the term "martinet" when voicing his fear, so I learned a new vocabulary word.

mar·ti·net

/ˈmärtnˌet/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. a strict disciplinarian, especially in the armed forces.

   "the woman in charge was a martinet who treated all those beneath her like children"

Welp, none of the rest of us want the job either, and Assistant Boss is the most likely choice anyways. But then, I don't think any of us underlings want the assistant job either. We're all part-timers with other income trickles, not necessarily in the ladder-climbing season of life. From casual conversations, while it's a nice little part-time gig, it seems clear that none of us want to do this work full time. Plus, we're a state college, so the salary is crap.

I'm just riding along, waiting to see where we are in a month or so.

I was having a similar conversation with one of my tutor cohorts. "K" is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, so I will respect their preference here. They had applied for a full-time math faculty position, but told me they weren't selected. Seems too early to know that, and I have no idea how many applied, but K is now looking at alternatives.

I'm certain K could quite readily get a full-time job teaching high school math, but I know they don't want that! I explored that for a few months, myself. No thank you.

In the meantime, K and I can shoot the breeze during slow times in the math center. I first met K at the tutor kickoff meeting last fall. I thought they were a woman until they spoke to me in a clearly masculine voice. So my initial impression was - that guy who wears skirts every day. No makeup, nothing frilly, they just prefer skirts.

But I've since gotten to know them better, and I realized I don't notice the binaryism so much. K is just K - a helpful tutoring resource, math geek, and confidant.  If they truly want to be full-time faculty, then I would hope that for them, but I don't know that the position was all that desirable other than the increase in pay. Plus, who would I then chatter with in the math center?

So back to the Boss position, a committee has formed to make a selection. Coworker Party Girl is on the committee, presumably to "stuff the ballot box" in Assistant Boss's favor?

Or at least to keep out the martinets.

something next to nothing but different than the day before

1. Write about a time you participated in a competition.

This one time? At band camp?

No, actually... I did marching band and sports - basketball and track - all through high school. Competitions were a part of daily life. At one track meet during my freshman year, Coach added me to the long jump roster. 

Now, I was a sprinter, and track rules were that each athlete could compete in (I think it was) 5 events or less. No more. Between my individual events and relays, I was maxed out already. But Coach noticed that there were not many girls competing in the long jump at that particular meet, so she added a couple of teammates and I to the event figuring that chances were high we might get some points out of it. 

I jumped as an imposter, code name: Cordova. 

I wasn't really into it, but what the heck. Problem was, a couple of times "my" name Cordova was called to jump, it failed to occur to me that the track official was summoning me. I vividly recall my teammate Debby smacking me on the arm, "you're up CORDOVA *big bug eyes* wink wink nudge nudge*

"OH, yup! That's me! Cordova!", I bellied up to the deck as the official looked at us suspiciously. Then I performed my mediocre-just-became-a-longjumper-an-hour-ago jump.

I somehow managed to sort of make a name for myself in my real events by the end of that season, so most of the other coaches at meets we attended eventually knew my real name. That was the end of my track fraud career.

2. Tell us about a recent favorite purchase.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Magnum and I left the gym we'd been members of and bought city rec passes instead. The rec pass is cheaper than the gym and gives us access to more facilities including several pools, three different weight/ cardio rooms, indoor gymnasiums, etc. So far, I'm happy with the change. I've mainly only been to the the weight /cardio room housed inside the local Senior Center because it's closest to where we live, and it's populated with a good mix of ages. 

Seems there's a water aerobics class going on during the times I've gone to the gym. So several older ladies are in the locker room readying to get their water aerobics on. They're sweet and I can tell this is a social as well as physical event for them. 

I walk through a sitting/coffee area to get to the workout room, and in that area are several retired men sitting around solving the world's problems. 

I'm glad there's such a place for these swimmers and world problem solvers. I'm not quite ready to count myself among them.

3. Share a project you are working on.

I'm tutoring a handful of nice students this semester. They're all struggling, which is the reason they sign up for tutoring in the first place. One of these students is clearly intelligent and articulate, but she processes concepts slower than average. 

I've known her from my job in the testing center since she is one of the students who tests with accommodations. I honestly don't know what her "disability" is - something neurological, I think. There is nothing obvious when speaking with her, and again, she is witty and articulate, already has a bachelor's degree in another area. But math concepts take a toll. We're nearly at the end of unit 2, and she's still struggling with unit 1 skills. She's a project I'm trying to figure out.

4. Write a blog post inspired by the word: trip

Magnum and I are embarking on a getaway to somewhere sunny and warm. We'll be wearing shorts and short sleeves and enjoying clean, fresh air.  Playing and relaxing.

... then I woke up. It was dark and temperatures outside were in the single digits. I feel due for a real trip rather than just the dream kind.

5. Write about something you are looking forward to.

 I will let the cat speak for me when I say I'm ready for spring.

Not even necessarily full-on itchy, sneezy, allergeny spring. But I am looking forward to the prelude to spring:  sunny days consistently getting into the 50's, overnights staying above 30, snow that melts the day after it falls.

It's coming, Kitty!

Linking up this week with Mama Kat. Doing ALL the prompts.

a mile from yours

Happy February. Did the groundhog see his shadow, or was there a big balloon covering the sun?

Whatever, I'm happy that the temps warmed up, and the sun has visited, and all this snow and ice and crap that's been around for a few weeks is slowly leaving. Yes, I like having four seasons, but snow and ice don't normally stick around very long here between storms, we're spoiled that way.

I did this month's Tortoise & Hare race with the running club this morning, a 5-miler. Not too chilly or windy, so a nice day of it. Icy in spots, but I managed to remain upright and make it across the finish. I'm still not up to my pre-covid pace, but it's fun nonetheless.

Speaking of getting older *ahem*, I visited a new gym yesterday. Magnum and I decided to leave the gym we'd been members of and get city rec passes instead. The passes give us access to various recreation facilities around town including three workout gyms. So happens, the one closest to our house is at the local Senior Center.

Okay, fine.

I will add that the Senior Center is not JUST for old folks. 18 years and up is the age limit, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was not the youngest person using the gym. As for the basketball court - that place seems to be all-pickleball-all-the-time. Pickleball? Anyone?

And speaking of younger folks, I mentioned last week that the tutoring center at the college is low on math tutors for the number of requests, so they'd asked me if I'd take on a calculus group. I said, "sure, why not?", but I've mainly been a one-on-one tutor and wasn't sure how effective a group (turns out, there are 4 students in my group) sesh would be.

But hey, our first session was actually quite fun, I can dig this group stuff. They all came with their anxieties and questions and likely picked up a few skills they wouldn't have otherwise thought to work on.

In addition, I have two one-on-one tutees, so the semester is off to a nice start. All pleasant "kids".

I'll wrap up this weekly rundown with a pic of my new water bottle, tea mug for scale.

It's pretty. It's insulated. It was essentially free-to-me. It has a screw-on-flip lid - which seems a bit of overkill - but it's what all the kids are into these days, I guess.

Simple pleasures.

getting closure

Nice to be sitting here at the end of a busy week. Lots of activity at work with it being the week before Thanksgiving, PLUS a lot of people are out sick. Not COVID, but there seems to be a heavy cold thing going around. Lots of people fighting the snot wars.

I feel kind of bad for these college students, having forgotten what that's like. Miss a couple of classes, and too bad, the work moves on without you. 

I was tutoring yesterday, and another student whom I don't formally tutor, but have helped out a few times, tried to "crash" the session my student, "Ren", and I were having. I know Ren, didn't want the other guy, "Joe", to join, and we managed to fend him off, but I felt kind of bad.

Joe explained that his tutor, Kay, has been out sick for two weeks. TWO weeks! I wondered why I hadn't seen Kay in a while.

My coworkers in the testing center have been in and out with illness too, and we don't have much back fill. So I worked a few extra hours last week to cover. On Thursday, I was working my usual scheduled shift as we  were getting our first decent snowstorm of the season. An announcement came over the PA that campus was closing early because of the weather.

So we all got to go home early, but what a pain, having to end certification exams that people had prepared and paid for. They'll be able to reschedule, but I know they were thinking they'd have them out of the way and be able to relax for Thanksgiving.

Think again.

But hey, at least we're not Buffalo, NY! Eek, whatta mess. 

Stay warm and safe!

saving time

Happy November on standard time. I don't know anyone who likes the twice-a-year ritual of changing our clocks ahead or back an hour, but here we are still doing it. I'm more of a morning person, so if I were to choose a preference, I guess I'd go with standard time, but really, I'd be happy to just pick ONE and done.

I did another one of those Tortoise and Hare races this morning - this one a 5k. It was well attended under overcast skies and about 40 degrees F.  Results aren't in yet, so I don't have a final count on attendees, but it was probably the most crowded of these races I've done yet. Granted, I started doing them in 2020, somewhat socially distanced, so it's good to see the numbers continuing to increase.

As far as my performance, I felt pretty good about it. My big push to the finish was a bit hampered by the crowd - the nature of these Tortoise and Hares is that the pack gets thicker closer to the finish - so it was more of a big bob and weave, but much fun was had and that's the point. 

We watched a couple of movies this weekend. Firstly, Athena was an engrossing film, loaded with symbolism and complex cinematography. Thinking back on it now, I don't remember any "slow" parts with any sort of breather. That said, it's also very gritty, violent, and edgy and is not one I would recommend for the masses. It's French with English subtitles, and it was challenging to follow the dialogue while also taking in all the visuals. The ending left us with more questions than answers, and I'm sure if we watched it again, we'd see things we missed the first go around.

Nextly, we watched The Way Way Back which was certainly on the lighter side from Athena, but it had its share of emotion as well. It's about an awkward 14-year-old kid who spends the summer at a beachhouse with his mom, her jerk boyfriend, jerk boyfriend's daughter, and the somewhat lacking-in-morals adult friends of jerk boyfriend. 

It was cute, predictable, had its comedic moments, and I liked it well enough. Steve Carrell plays the jerk boyfriend, and it was interesting to see him as a non-humorous asshole for a change.

I've taken on a couple more tutees, and a common theme is how lacking in skills a lot of these kids are. I call them "lost children of the pandemic". 2020 and 2021 were not good years to be in high school. Ooch.