Clarence "Sparr" Risher

I suppose I need to write my words, but what I would like to be doing is continuing my knitting project and watching Um Actually.

(Um Actually has been _great_ background television for me, lo these many moons. It's exciting when I can get something right --I was particularly proud of a recent "needs more pixels" where I actually got the right answer on first round and none of the contestants managed after several-- and it's easy to just enjoy when it's not things I particularly know.)

My vague sense for myself is "maybe I shouldn't have more than like three knitting projects on needles at the same time" which doesn't actually play well with my ADHD popping back and forth between things constantly. It feels like I should try and consistently have "something I can easily throw into a bag and work on wherever" in addition to "something I need to concentrate on in mostly one location". Finishing projects is going to remain the hardest part.

Current projects:

*A chaos scarf for my sister, because she was one of the two family members who actually honored my christmas list request of "tell me what you would like me to make you for next christmas". Mom's is more complicated, and I need to do more toruses before I'll be able to ask her for measurements, but Al very cutely was enthusiastic about my hideous nightmare chaos scarf that was the whole reason I got into this nonsense in the first place. Okay, sure, I can make you a scarf, scarves are great!

So far I have decided to make it difficult for myself in multiple different ways. But the nice thing about "make a twelve foot scarf with whatever random yarns come your way" is that I can just work on it forever.

*A book cover for my ereader. This is one hundred percent "I don't want to learn how to read patterns so I will design my own concept of fucking around". I had to frog like half of it because I didn't _quite_ have enough yarn to do the whole thing with my ancient remaining stash of candy-corn yarn, so I had to obtain a new ball in a similar colour. I'm increasingly close to actually done, but there's definitely a hard part I want to finish with that I have no idea if it's even possible to do. The candy-corn yarn is officially my "practice swatching things" yarn though, so I want it back, so eventually I'll just...do whatever nonsense I am gonna and be done with it. (do hard things badly).

*Wee tiny proof-of-concept swatch for a "I'm pretty sure this is how you do the thing" idea. It's also my first practice using my size 1 needles, which is very important practice to have if I'm going to try making socks, which I would probably like to do.

Future problems include "I dunno man, I'm just doing this because it's better for my mental health than playing shitty phone games" and "kilt hose". Cabling is obviously something I have to learn how to do at some point and goddamnit why is it only just now occuring to me that obviously I eventually need to have kilt hose with blue lines on them, what a delicious variety of nerd. Fuck. I'll write it in the file.

Anyways, that's where I'm at. Hope you are well!

~Sor
MOOP!

As a small good thing, I ordered two more skirts from Maya Kern while they were having a sale. I was worried the thistles one would be a colour I don't actually like, but it turns out to be a little more muted than the photos, in a way that I really enjoy! So that's lovely, and I am pleased to add a couple more very pockety skirts to my Pinewoods rotation.

I've been having a rough first half of the year at work. It's the fact that It's 2026 fucking me up, but I've also just like...not been as good of a teacher as I would like to be. I am maybe finding new energy and doing a better job these past couple weeks, which is very good, but also extremely frustrating because boy howdy, past me did not do any favours. Recovering from that is gonna keep being rough.

Case in point: Yesterday was 9.5 hours of active work, today was 9. Both with additional 2 hour zoom meetings after I got home. This is me _barely_ keeping up. It remains really _really_ frustrating that the better I do at my job the more time it takes --there is so little that I am able to optimize.

But I have a decent piece of differentiation/extra challenge for my ninth graders tomorrow (since some of them are definitely already finished with the activity that I expect the other half of the class to finish tomorrow). I found all the old reference sheets and made good (filled in!) copies for the special-ed tenth graders taking the midterm next week. I wrote a thoughtful circle activity (with help/inspiration from my coteacher!) for class 2 to do some community building with their extra classtime due to snow day shenanigans. I printed a couple early copies of the midterm for any tenth graders who want to start the midterm early since they won't be here Monday. I emailed the students and parents of every 9th grader who failed the midterm to begin making a tutoring and retake plan. I sorted the papers to return for one (of three, sigh) class so that I can just drop a pile at each person's desk instead of endlessly running around the room.

(to be fair, that last one is explicitly a "goddamn, recovering from being less good the first half of the year sucks" problem, since it's returning basically every paper I'd collected since, I dunno, October? This is very much something I could've been doing better on. Like. Returning things more frequently, yanno?)

((And to be unfair, I still have more grading and things to return, but that's all quarter 3 work at least.))

And while both yesterday and today I did take breaks after my contractual work day ended, they were only 45-60 minutes total. That's a lot better than getting stuck playing shitty phone games for three hours after the last bell and having to suddenly rush my copies so I can go the fuck home. I'm proud of myself for that.

Still though. "Excuse me while I teach your child but first I must" remains _barely_ satire. Rereading it, the phrase "time-wasting professional development" especially stings this week. Also the depressing reminder that this was in 2018 which is the only reason "attend a training for how to best protect my immigrant students from being targeted, deported, or killed by the government that should be supporting them" isn't anywhere on there. You know. Hypothetically.

So I'm flopping now, wearing a cute new skirt, and debating what to do for the last hour or so before I have to go to bed. It's such a delight to have any damn time to myself, maybe I'll waste it by fucking around with unsatisfying video games.

Maybe this weekend I'll have time and energy to make a dint on my grading pile. Or I could try going to bells for the first time in months? Both are good options, I suppose.

I wish you time and energy to do all the beautiful things that excite you.

~Sor
MOOP!

Today was a nice day!

Tuesday and I played quite a bit of Cadence of Hyrule, which was extremely enjoyable to do. I love Crypt of the Necrodancer very much, and I like playing video games with other people, so this was a good combo. It's exciting to me to get to be the better player at a game, because that is not generally the case. Not that I was doing a flawless job or anything, Tuesday is also very good at games, but I have played a staggering amount of Necrodance over the years, and I'm sure I was extremely charmingly irritating about all the parts where I was like "oh yeah, I know exactly how that mechanic works".

At lunchtime, we swung by the local little Japanese place, and got an assortment of things. Some of it was excellent (their little friend sesame balls were exemplary) and some of it was merely acceptable, which is still a nice situation restaurant-wise. Foolishly of Tuesday, I now know this is quite close and may drag us there on future visits as well.

More video games, then being floppy in bed and doing some parallel play, and finally it was dinner time and we settled in to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once, which I had never seen. We'd specifically been trying to find a time to watch it when we could watch it on Tuesday's properly big television (rather than laptop screens or something else inadequate) and I do think it was worth it.

The movie is absolutely as splendid as everyone said. Some of it was extremely predictable, but in the way that felt right. It felt like the joy of storytelling, the hope of seeing everything come round the way it ought to, while still being beautiful and joyous and just an absolute delight. And the actual visuals of it are astoundingly well done! There was a moment where I realized I want to do the double feature of this with Wizard of Speed and Time. Specific theme: it would be good to watch this on a device capable of going frame-by-frame when necessary.

(I should make sure I've shown Tuesday WoSaT at some point, because if I haven't, that _really_ needs to be rectified. I think she would find it Good.)

Tomorrow we get more being floppy and goofy together. Probably more video games. Certainly more being very much in love. Eventually I get on a train and head back to Somerville (in time for dance, even.)

As long as I ignore the fact that I need to work on grading at some point, I am having a lovely vacation!

~Sor
MOOP!

The world is complicated and there are a lot of things to have feelings about, obviously on a macro level, but for me on a more micro level as well.

But.

I spent the day with various groups of friends, and doing a bunch of knitting work and making things with my hands. And it feels very very good.

I'm happy for that. I hope you can also find things that make you happy.

~Sor
MOOP!