(no subject)

Sooooo, it's yet again 1:45 in the morning with words unwritten and some amount of sleep behind me. This is *not* actually a good trend, or one I think should keep going. I don't even have anything good to write about tonight! Aieeeeeee!

***

I did sign the lease with Ezri. This involved a visit to a real office building, an activity I always find really fun. I don't know why I get such joy out of being in corporate centers, beyond the utter novelty of it all --I've never worked in a traditional office and neither have my parents. Also, I like the little glimpses of humanity you get when walking in a cube farm. Who has action figures, or photos, or gender 101 resources posted on their walls?

***

This afternoon, I read a twitter thread about accidentally stealing a brick of heroin, and having the balls to really pull it off. It was a Really Good Thread --maybe some of the best nonfiction I've read in a while! Despite knowing that obviously the person had to survive (since they were reporting back about this event from their past) I found my heart pounding as the story built.

I wonder if the tweet format was responsible for some of the Emotions I was having, since Twitter naturally interrupts the flow of your story. Having a choppy staccato feel really worked for this one, since it was meant to be a thriller. Check it out maybe!

Today in therapy we talked some about burnout (and Jenn recommended a book to me, so I will have to go to the library OH NO HOW TERRIBLE to see if I can find that. We also talked some about reading and nonfiction and why I'm kinda bad at it, but we'll see. I do genuinely want to do some research on this, which makes getting a book more likely.)

We also talked about how burnout tends to be higher in people who are seeing more of a disconnect between what they are doing and the positive change they'd like to be making. Her example was hospice care workers (who can genuinely put effort and love into their patients and still watch them get worse because that's what happens sometimes.) but it's very easy to draw that parallel with teaches, and with the idea that I can _always_ be doing more and my job really emphasizes that.

Soooo we'll see. Like I said, maybe I go to the library sometime this week and investigate.

***

Going to the library is much more feasible than it's been lately, as I only have a few more days with full caseload, and then I am largely done! Yesterday I graded all the Data Analysis work for both classes (except the final project) and today I did the same for Calculus, which means all my students have progress reports saying "look, this is it, this is the thing." Tomorrow morning I need to do the same for Algebra --even though I don't have any seniors in that class, it'd be nice to be caught up and able to tell them "here's what YOU have to catch up on in the next few weeks", especially to the one or two students who just...are very much on the edge of passing that class.

Or maybe instead of Reading Books and doing Self-Enrichment, I will once again discover unblocked-games-dot-com or whatever and see just how much Bloon's Tower Defense I can play before the end of the school year.

***

The fact that I do have things to write about is, I think, a good one. The last few days have been a bit of a struggle, and feeling very brain-foggy. I still feel kinda brain-foggy all up ins, but it's tempered with a slow movement forward and a feeling that there's light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm not always sure that I'm using my therapist "correctly", but ultimately, I do feel like it's a chance to force me to be accountable for my brain, and that is not nothing.

I hope y'all are well!

~Sor
MOOP!

Practice is a laudable goal

Tonight I rang Stedman Doubles.

I watched the one real close as a different group was ringing it, and then when they finished leaned over and asked Danielle (who was leading practice), if I could have a go at it with a strong band if there was time. Danielle seemed totally delighted to let me do so (saying her plan was to have me practice the dodging, but this was fine too if I felt ready).

She said I should get a good job sticker after. Josh applauded. Margaret told me specific I did an excellent job and Elaine said I have to add the word "gloriously" to the sentence that starts this entry. I rang Stedman Doubles, for the first time tonight, and I did so gloriously.

I am somewhat frustrated with my brain, because it won't let me just have this. "But I know Stedman really well" it says. "It's the first thing I learned on the app, before Plain Bob even". "I've drawn it dozens of times". "I've rung it in hand more'n just about anything (except maybe PBM)". "We spent like an hour of that Saturday practice two weeks ago doing just the front work". "Elaine was pointing out my dodging partners for me".

My brain is saying all of those as minimizations, as "this isn't really anything special" as "this isn't actually an achievement because x-y-z." My brain is refusing to recognize the fact that what those are are all _steps on the ladder_ and of COURSE they led me to being able to do this tonight and do it well. None of these are minimizations, they're fucking *proof*.

I rang Stedman Doubles tonight, and I rang it gloriously, because I'm very well prepared for Stedman. I have spent a lot of time and quiet brain in the last year and a half practicing this method. I think it's beautiful and have put focus into knowing what it looks like, and learning the path from any number of positions. I've practiced being part of the sound of it on handbells. I've practiced the front work. I'm accepting help with the parts that are hard to see on paper (the pattern of who to dodge with and when) until I can learn them on my own.

If I work really hard on something, I can do it. And the work keeps going and going and sometimes it's easier and a lot of the time it's harder, and I beat my head around the different ways to say and understand and question and explain until it finally clicks. This is a thing I can do --I can practice, I _can_ learn. I do not have to be inherently good at things to be able to do them.

The Saturday where we did nothing but front work was so beautiful to watch, because I really do know the pattern of the slow work like the back of my hand, but it still took again and again and again with the ropes to get them where we wanted and have the handling enough in place. Now I do it ten thousand more times until it's utterly natural. Practice is a laudable goal. I am allowed to start out poorly.

Actually let, me say that last part again: I am allowed to start out poorly. I am allowed to be poorly in the middle. I am allowed to be still learning and to mess up and to need to start over again and again. I am allowed to have trouble counting places and difficulties remembering where to look, who I'm dodging with. And really, forget "allowed", I must do these things or I'll never get there in the first place.

Tonight I rang Stedman Doubles. One glorious plain course (with a beauteous smartass of a conductor saying "stand next please" instead of that's all, so we even came round perfectly into our ending.) I'm proud of myself, and that's allowed --it's been hard work to get here.

One good job sticker for me, please.

~Sor
MOOP!

Original Tags: bestof, tintinnabulation, accomplishments