We all float down here: Do as I say!

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Do as I say!

Where to begin? I am teaching a new course this semester in business communication technology. It’s going OK. This past week, as I was preparing for next week (because I’m struggling to stay even a week ahead, unfortunately), I read a lot about best practices for blogging (for business purposes). Clearly, KYLady has violated all the best practices with her own personal blog. I ramble. I have no central theme to the blog (this, that, and the other about life and the world is a very broad scope). Posts are not submitted at predictable time intervals. My post headlines are a complete mystery at times. Proofreading happens sometimes. Tagging happens sometimes. This will be a Do as I say, not as I do lesson, for sure. Of course, not too many people on this planet even know my blog exists, and certainly it would not be something I tell my students (or anyone else) to go take a look at.

This week, I embarked on a great adventure with my class. Honestly, once I made plans to go there, I thought it was not uncharted territory for the University #1 system. We began playing with Microsoft Teams. As I was configuring the Team, every question I posed to our on-site “expert”, she forwarded to the system “expert”, resulting with an answer like in theory, it should work like this.. Clearly, this technology was bastardized for our use case, implemented, and released into the wild with not enough vetting. Oh well, so far, about 50% of my students have tested the water and it’s going OK. I am encouraged that there will be some value in what we are trying to do.

I promised a photo of my mini-succulent garden in the skull planter. As it turned out, the skull was smaller than I planned for, so I stuck one succie in its own little teacup planter. The results are OK. Having plants in my office makes it so much more pleasant to sit in. They make the place feel a little less cold and stark. There are 7 potted plants in my office right now.

My succulents

My new hip is doing great so far. I’m still doing physical therapy twice a week, for how much longer, I don’t know. There will be reassessment this week to see if there’s anything else that can be accomplished.

Last night, Someone and I went to Lexington to watch UK Cats play the Florida Gators (it’s college basketball, in case you’re not a fan). It was a great game, especially because we won. Our seats were near the roof of the arena. The stairs inside the arena are very steep. I was grateful for the stair railings. Whereas normal stairs are easy for me to use like a normal human, these steep stairs caused be to go back to the way I did stairs right after surgery – one at a time, good leg up\good leg up and back leg down\bad leg down. No doubt people behind me loved that, but too bad. I noticed that heavy people and many of the “older” people had as much or more trouble than I did.

In a TV time-out, a banner unfurls over the little student section.

Other than the stairs, we had one little incident to remind me that I’m not as good as I used to be. Someone was so eager to get to the arena (we had to park about five blocks away), that he kept walking way faster than I could keep up with him. It’s not like we were pressed for time – we had two hours until the tip-off. I offered to send the tickets to his phone so that he could run ahead and enjoy those extra minutes of noisy ambience, but no, he just kept stopping and waiting for me to catch up (with that sulky, impatient look on his face). Anyway, we were waiting to cross a busy street and there was a break in the traffic. Someone grabbed my hand and said “Come on” as if we were both going to dash across the street in this short window of opportunity. He pulled me off the curb – fortunately I hit the ground with my good leg and then broke free from him as he ran across barely beating the oncoming cars. Idiot. I could have never made that! A few moments later, the light changed and everyone who waited crossed safely. Someone is like toddler sometimes.

Today, we took Gracie for a hike. It was great to get out into the woods again. Our February has been wonderfully mild. We heard an owl in the woods...that was the highlight for me. Owls (all raptors, really) are marvelous birds. The trail we took today is hilly with lots of rocks and tree roots to navigate. Part of it winds around the lake under pine trees – my favorite part (and that part is easy walking). I was able to go about a mile before turning around. Perhaps next time, we’ll try a little farther. Baby steps – I’m getting my life back.