It is the last week of school before Winter Break. I am sooooo exhausted from all the meetings. This week is truly brutal for teachers. Everyone is trying to wrap up mid-year check-ins, complete student documentation, throw gift exchange parties, and host student performances. While I love this time of year for all the festivities, it’s also really hard to make it to everything in one week, and I’m feeling some serious FOMO from bailing on some social events (like the faculty holiday party) because I had overlapping meetings scheduled at the same time. Next year, can we please spread out these things a little more? But as the week comes to a close, I’m also looking forward to having some time at home to relax, sleep a lot, and do literally anything other than run from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting.
For real, at least half of these meetings could have been emails.
Here are some interesting things that have caught my attention this week:
A 6-year-old girl appealed to the LA County Department of Animal Care and Control for permission to get a pet unicorn and their response was pretty magical.
Former Emperor Tangerine Palpatine has issued a new set of super pricey Trump NFTs with images so ridiculously over-the-top that I thought they were parodies. What do you think?.
“Space Karen” Musk is no longer the richest man in the world. His botched takeover of Twitter has been a failure in so many ways.
While I have not left Twitter, entirely, I use it mostly to keep up with news from my home state of West Virginia, especially since the newspaper keeps finding reasons to fire, lay off, or just make it hella uncomfortable for awesome journalists to stick around. It kind of feels like local journalism is under attack, especially in smaller towns that don’t get a lot of national attention.
Speaking of my native place, I really enjoyed this Open Letter to J.D. Vance from Black By God, (which keeps wowing me with excellent and thought-provoking writing). I read his book Hillbilly Elegy when it was new and everyone was touting it as “the definitive work of Appalachian literature.” Let me save you the $14.99. The book was unreadable. It was mostly re-hashed Ayn Rand “bootstraps” mythology and overused stereotypes of the poor and ignorant. A better use of your time would be to read Appalachian Reckoning, written as a response to the book, written collaboratively by just a sampling of the diverse, creative, influential folks who are working hard to transform the region despite huge challenges that have existed for generations.
Feel like you’ve been sick a lot this year? Covid may be to blame, even if you aren’t sick with covid. I don’t know about you but I feel like I’ve gotten every bug going around. Well, it turns out that maybe our immune systems are just overloaded. Interesting.
RIP Stephen Boss, AKA tWitch. My friend and coworker Holly Shogbesan said, “Life is heavy even for those whose job it is to bring joy,” and I feel this with all my soul. If you think of all the funny, talented, successful people we have lost to suicide, it just underscores the fact that depression is an illness that we need better resources to treat this epidemic. If you are fighting this demon or know someone who is, please familiarize yourself with the new 24-hour crisis lifeline, 988, and please seek help. The world is better with you in it.
Also, RIP P-22, the famous Hollywood Puma. He was a gorgeous creature, and it’s so sad that he had to be euthanized after getting hit by a car.
Here’s something joyful — my students are getting ready for this year’s MLK Oratorical. This is an annual contest in which students perform public speaking (including speeches, poetry and prose readings, and more) in the spirit of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. This contest is the subject of the 2020 HBO Emmy-winning documentary We Are the Dream. I have been showing this video as kids finish their artwork for the first semester to try and drum up excitement for this year’s entries. It’s cool to see some of these kids when they were babies just a couple years ago. Middle school is wild like that.
More joy: a friend, Sarah Bowlin, sent me this picture of people from her church caroling at my parents’ house. This picture warmed my heart so much! Sometimes the best gift is a text message.
My Mum, getting serenaded by the Mt. Juliet Methodist Church carolers. 🥰
The unicorn request was so cute. Musk is just as much of a nut as Trump is. The trading cards are a hoot and I can't believe they sold out. People who bought them are really stupid. Oh, my, is right! WE are all going down a rabbit hole, aren't we?
Merry Christmas!