Missing Memories
Hey. Did you ever think about how some of your memories are just gone now? Like every so often a blip will come up and remind you of something. Like cleaning out St. Bonaventure with Vicki and then going home to take a cold shower and having your parents yell at you about not going to the track banquet at the end of your junior year when you never went to any others because you weren't friends with anyone on the team. Yeah looking at cyberdream 1 with robo-Bart made me remember that. I also think that when I am gone there will be so many memories that will go with me. That no one will know or remember these happy and sad things that happened. Things that have value to me. I suppose that most of them are valuable only to me, but still.
I'm here at work prepping for next week. I am teaching 1 summer class this year - BIO169. I have never taught it before. So I have to make all of my notes and all of my materials. I guess that will be good before I go ahead and try to teach it online next semester. This should be the last new course I have to teach. Next, I can focus on improving what I already have and making sure I am a better teacher.
I have seen a spike in the level of divisiveness caused by social media. I have been a part of it, too. When I see a car covered with "Let's go Brandon" (still... jeez let it end) and Trump I just want to roll my eyes. Like I assume the person inside is not a great person. That's influenced by things I see and read on social media. I am sure that the media portrays people on the right as lazy and strange to the people on the left. It's terrible. The country seems more divided than ever on lines of race, class, sex, and age. What will come next? A lot of people have felt squeezed lately. Will there be pushback and we can have another 90's where the economy was good for everyone? Or most people? Or are things on the edge of a decline?
I'm taking 2 summer classes. Quant 1 and Qual 1. I think I like quant better! D: It's all math. I make dumb math mistakes a lot, but it's very straightforward and makes sense. Qual is just... so fluffy. Like I don't know if I have learned anything from it yet. I am sure I will, and I am sure I will get something out of class. I am annoyed because she gave us 6 readings last week. I was able to do 5. I thought I did all 6, which is why I didn't read the last one. She starred two readings as important. I did those first. She didn't talk about either one of those. She focused on two that were at the bottom and one was the one I just happened not to read. Why. I swear these professors think that being a doc student gives them license to give us as much work as possible because we are higher level. Sometimes that amount of work is untenable.
Speaking of, I also have to work on my research work - coding a bunch of data. It's taking some time. I need to have results soon, though. I have set a due date for myself in 2 weeks. It's definitely doable, I just can't do things like... write in a live journal... _> n_n I also have to start my literature review. I have done some searching for papers, but I have to change my search terms. I actually asked AI to help me develop my search terms. Like... I told it what I wanted and it helped me organize it into a boolean search. I am not confident in doing that, so having a tool to help was great.
There's just a lot to do.... I haven't really told Doug how much I have to do, because I already feel bad about being gone 2 nights a week. I will probably have to, because I need more work time. I know, I am not doing great by sitting here and writing, but the writing does help me get into the feel of working. I know that sounds weird... The problem is that I am unable to stay awake in the evening. Like tonight, I will probably crash when I put Veronica to sleep. Then I will get up to go to bed, but I know I won't be able to focus to read or answer questions or do anything. I wish we lived close to someone we could ask to help us or take the kids for like an afternoon or something. I'd pay for it!
So Doug sent me the new 26 shirt and it is a Josh Allen/Trogdor mashup and I am SO here for that. I will be getting it. I signed up to do this glow run in a few weeks, so I need to get running for that. My knees are sore and I feel heavy. So I need to lose some weight and get back into shape. There's just no time. I feel pressure to be home and cook and do a bunch of stuff around the house but that never gets done or it just repeats... Yikes. The kids' rooms are terrible. There's just too much all the time.
I guess that means me and my memories will have to put our head down and get to work. I can do it. I just need the time.
Oh, here are some random memories so they can continue to exist in some way:
-Sitting at the kitchen table in like... high summer at night eating smartfood popcorn and thinking about the day. No worries, just thinking about riding bikes and swimming. Watching it get darker through the open front door.
-Riding bikes with Caroline, her fam, probably Annette and Michelle, and Caroline's dad to Tops so we could get the Kiss 98.5 book cover. I posted it up in my room like a poster.
-Riding over to Tops with my friends. Going to the bulk candy section and getting a HUGE bag of sour patch kids. Then sitting in the backyard and eating them all day until my mouth burned from the citric acid.
-Trying to figure out how to use my mom's baseball glove that was just sitting in the garage.
-Dragging my bike out from the side of the garage without so much as touching my mom's car because I would be destroyed. Riding for hours just to be out of the house on a sunny summer day. Seeing people I knew in that neighborhood and talking to them.
-Going to Birchfield park and putting a little plastic heart on a tree branch where I knew I could find it.
-Going to the creek and playing with the creek mud. Washing it off and feeling how soft my hands were.
-Finding tiny fossils in the shale along the edge of the creek.
These are just some that will be gone. Now, they sit here. They don't convey everything from that time, but at least I can go back and maybe one day tell you about them.