try my best to love you in this world we in (WN 34)

This week has been rough. As I wrote last week, I was out sick from work three days, so all this week I’ve been playing catch up — trying to dig myself out of the hole while also keeping head above water with everything new that’s happening¹. The group of kids I have this year are really likeable, but they’re incredibly immature. I’m dealing with a lot of classroom management challenges, which has rarely been an issue for me². I’m struggling to keep them in their seats and have a coherent lesson without interruptions. One class in particular is incredibly challenging and it’s really starting to wear on me. I love what I do, in a general sense, but lately, I’m not happy to go to work. I dread the middle portion of my day in particular (tough class and then immediately into lunch duty). The highlights have been few and far between; I’m constantly disappointed in myself that I’m not doing a better job even though I know a lot of these struggles are bigger than me and my classroom. On top of that, I’ve had a bunch of not fun expenses crop up this week — a $2500 repair bill on my car, we had our septic tank pumped, and we’re trying to get a plumber in because our shower drain isn’t draining — and other adult shit³. All in, this week has been filled with an overwhelming number of stressors piling together.

I did have a bit of a breakthrough with my college class, however. It’s been going well for weeks now, but this week’s class in particular felt like I was finally an authentic version of myself as a teacher (albeit to an older audience than I’m used to) rather than trying to be the professor I took the class with (now a friend and mentor). I feel I’ve at last released myself from lofty expectations, perfectionism and trying to squash myself into a mold and just be me. Of course, I still have the nagging voice that says that I’m not good enough or doing enough, but perhaps drowning that out is the next frontier.

We did creative non-fiction writing this week in the class (inspired by Mango Street), which is my favorite genre to write, and it has me thinking about the personal writing I’ve done. I’ve always considered it unpublishable and unworthy to be shared even with friends (especially with friends?), but I simultaneously feel compelled to push myself out of that comfort zone and pursue it more seriously. It’s fucking personal, though, and scary to submit myself to the mortifying ordeal of being known — but then again, this is my blog, and if I can’t bring myself to publish it here, the words will forever rot and die on my hard drive,⁴ which feels a cruel fate to subject them to, not the least because I’ve labored so much over them.

Otherwise, I posted on Mastodon that I think I’m about to get into fountain pens. Maybe a year ago, I got a Platinum Preppy EF in a JetPens starter pack. I’d never used a fountain pen before, and when I tried it out, I found it really unpleasant to write with and stuffed it in a desk drawer. A few months ago, though, some students who are into calligraphy and bujo came to talk to me about pens, and I pulled it out to show them — and I found I loved writing with it. It ran out of ink recently, so I decided to do a little research on fountain pens and ordered a TSWBI Swipe, a couple cartridges, and a syringe. It finally came in today and I found the line way too thick — I have small handwriting and generally use .03 gel pens. The Preppy felt good to me — a little thicker but not unreasonable — so I’m disappointed. I’ve only tried the Swipe on shitty copy paper so far and will give it a go on better quality stock, but I’m thinking now of ordering a converter and bottled ink to use with the Preppy. It’s such a complicated world to dive into, though! If there are fountain pen people out there reading this, I appreciate any guidance!

Reading

I’m still technically reading Villette, a few pages at a time; this time, it’s less an indictment of the text and more how fucking busy I’ve been. I’m genuinely enjoying it (and excessively entertained by Lucy’s homoerotic fascination with Madame Beck) and dying to go back to it, but I haven’t been able to make time for reading this week. I’m so exhausted by the time I get home and eat dinner that I can’t mentally commit to reading — and forget finding time during the school day like I’ve been able to in the past.

Watching

I’m still rewatching Weeds and my feelings are mostly unchanged: I’m here for Nancy and Mary Louise Parker’s performance. I’m into the Ren-Mar season now, where Esteban is introduced and looms large; I remember this being when I started to turn on the show when I watched it the first time, so we’ll see if I begin to wane on it again or if my feelings about him change (they have not yet — I find his mafia boss shit weird and gross even if it’s a natural character progression for Nancy).

Playing

I bought the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster against my better judgement (not really — I’d just hoped to have finished Baldur’s Gate 3 at this point). I was a huge fan of Tactics Advance as a kid and was always curious about Tactics, but rumors have swelled for years about a potential remaster, so I always put off playing it until the remaster dropped. I’m only in Chapter 2, but I really love it so far; it’s the fluid and customizable job system that I loved from Tactics Advance, and I’m more interested in the story than I anticipated. I’ve always heard that it’s super political, which it is, but there’s enough of a human angle in the relationship with Ramza and Delita that I find it compelling and am excited to see what happens next. I’d like to say I’ll be able to find time during the coming week to play it more.

Listening

I listened to Food in the Belly by Xavier Rudd because “Messages” was in an episode of Weeds. I found the album mostly forgettable outside of the one song.

kitty put out a new song (“cassadaga fairy garden”) that I think is really cool. It feels like D&B track fused with BOPPLES and Ninajirachi. I really dug “international thirst champion,” too, which came out earlier this year.

For whatever reason, I’m going back to Future’s “Red Leather” a lot this week. I think it was in a dream I had, and it’s been caught in my head ever since. I love a guitar in a rap song, I think (see also: Polo G’s “Martin & Gina” and Raury’s “Amor” — the outro, at least).

I’d like to maybe start including my top ten songs every week in a kind of playlist feature here? Bandcamp launched a playlist feature⁵ that I could use, but it could also just be a list. Right now remote access to my Plex server is being weird and my plays haven’t been scrobbling properly unless I’m on my home network⁶, so I’m working off of just the Plex stats, which seem wrong. Regardless, here’s what I have for this week — a mix of most played and songs I’m just thinking about, in no particular order.

1. “Red Leather” by Future
2. “cassadaga fairy garden” by Kitty
3. “Amor” by Raury
4. “Sickset” by Rainbow Kitten Surprise
5. “She Crows (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #4)” by Los Campesinos!
6. “Tin Man” by feeble little horse
7. “Messages” by Xavier Rudd
8. “It’s Called: Freefall” by Rainbow Kitten Surprise
9. “Cold Love” by Rainbow Kitten Surprise
10. “I Love the Valley” by Ten in the Swear Jar

Fuck Spotify so I’m not making the playlists there, but I guess you can make your own, if you’re so inclined.