an exercise in self-indulgence

City-wide covid testing happening now. They do it by neighborhoods. My community's testing places is technically walking distance, but it was uphill and farther away than I was told. I got there a bit after 8pm (I was told they'd be open until 10), but I was turned away after they had trouble scanning my health code. Okay, that's not accurate. I was set to the side, and this guy came and tried to talk to me, so I ended up having to make phone calls. Finally got someone on the third call. They talked to the testing place person. And then I was told to go home - someone would come to my home tomorrow. Fine. Whatever.

Maybe a half hour after I left, there's a knock at the door. I look out the peephole, and there are two people in the hazmat gear. Unexpected, but frankly a lot better than having to wait around tomorrow wondering when someone was going to come.

So that's done. It's my third time getting tested. The first time was summer of 2020. All the teachers had to be tested before we could return to the classroom. Second was in January 2021 during an outbreak. And now March 2022.

We've got 48 cases this week in my city. It's been months since the last ones. To put a little perspective on it, there were only 150 cases here in the first two years. Now nearly a third of that in a week. Yikes.

Public schools were closed yesterday. No idea when anybody will be back in person at any school.

I went out to pick up meds and a package yesterday and noticed there weren't as many people as usual out and about. I hadn't heard about the schools yet. Or seen the newest case numbers.

Part of me is panicky. I'm not worried about getting sick. I'm worried about the financial state of the company I work for. The last two years have been devastating.

Anyway. Um. Yeah.

I wanted to reply to the comments on my last post, but I'm sorry. I am just not up for it. A single heartfelt Thank You So Much is all I can manage.

We're up to 12 cases in my city now, 84 in the province. Yeah, the US hasn't had numbers like that since February 2020. But in a country with a Zero Covid Policy, it's different.

Hopefully the boosters are still happening tomorrow. Not that I want the disruption in my day, but the peace of mind from being fully vaccinated is worth it. And yeah, I know the Chinese vaccines aren't as good as the western ones, but they beat being unvaccinated.

Hopefully I'll have something to share on my situation this week. We'll see.

Just off the face of dw, as I tend to do.

Spring Festival, aka Chinese New Year is nearly upon us. There's been daily fireworks of varying degrees for over a month now. Ugh. Hopefully once Lantern Festival has passed, things will quiet down. Lantern Festival is two weeks after Spring Festival. That's when the public schools usually start the new semester.

I'm getting by. Considering how long I've been off my meds, I'm doing really well. Not great, but. I'll survive.

Work wasn't too bad this past semester. Who knows what next semester will bring. Hopefully not online classes like we've started every semester the past two years. We'll see. I'll be surprised, but pleased, if we do manage to start on time in the classroom.

I've got my doubts because of the influx of foreigners from the Olympics. No, they're not coming to my city, but covid doesn't give a shit. Y'know? Though we've had good luck so far here.

Um. Anyway. Hi.

I haven't be around here lately. Still spending most of my online time on tumblr. Less than I used to. I even skip it completely some days.

Depression's kicking my ass again. Not like that's news. I'm muddling through, medicated.

As far as work goes, we had to start the fall semester a week late (8/16 instead of 8/9) and online. We just got back to the classroom on Monday. But now it's Thursday and we're back online. I have no idea why. There's a teachers meeting tomorrow, and I hope to get some answers (I'm sure I'm not the only one).

I have mixed feelings about teaching online. It's less than half the time teaching. More comfortable. No commute. No germ-carrying children to sneeze and cough on me. But also no adult interaction. No being around the kids, which honestly helps my depression on some level. More time doing prep - I am so sick of powerpoint, you have no idea. More worry about the financial situation of the company.

Fannishly... I haven't really been doing much reading. No writing. No fannish legoing even. Forget vidding. I have grand plans various things to create Ahsoka's Pony Farm, possibly with silly play videos (featuring my hands moving the minifigs around).

I don't know. The whole not-reading thing bothers me.

Positive things? I had my annual health check last week. Amazingly enough, I hadn't gained any weight from the previous check (though I totally feel like I have. maybe it's just gravity). And my blood pressure went down. [shrug]

[shrug] is kinda my life. Well, on the average. I have bright spots. :)

Anyway. Hugs, kisses, and/or handshakes as appropriate.

Hauling my shit across the neighborhood.

I'm pretty sure I freaked out about having to move last fall/early winter. Rent gets paid semi-annually, and since the landlady had just gotten paid, I didn't have to worry about moving until the next time rent was due. April 25.

Please notice the date. I did find a place with plenty of time to spare, theoretically. I've been slowly moving stuff over here as I am once again moving across the neighborhood. This time to the west. My new place is nice, bigger, and CHEAPER than the place I'm leaving. Sweet.

I mentioned slowly moving things. Too slowly. I'm running out of time and panicking and it's just too much and why do I have SO MUCH STUFF JFC

Having that going on in my brain is exhausting. All the extra walking and pushing/pulling increasingly heavy loads is kicking my ass. Well, hips, ankles and so on.

Bonus, I keep getting new classes at school. And I've got one class (that I've had pretty much since I started back at the branch) that has me at the end of my rope. I finally talked to bosslady about it, and she's talking with the branch manager about it. Part of the problem is the chinese teacher, and I have no idea what's happening about that.

So it's all too much. And I am having the hardest time focusing my attention on anything. And the sky is falling.

and so on.

Thank you, everyone, for the lovely comments on my Mao post. <3 He's still more vocal, but the playing has lessened. But I'm not around as much on the weekends, so that might be contributing. I'm home now, and he's sitting between my feet grooming.

Meanwhile life goes on. It may be only four sleeps until Christmas, but I'm still pretty meh about it.

I'm on the low end of the mood merry-go-round, but it's not awful. Meds keep despair from being a daily thing.

I have totally blown my star wars lego advent calendars. Ah well.

I didn't do all these this year. Just about half.



I'm in a yarn-y headspace apparently. Got a knitting machine (and inexpensive one, of course). Been buying yarn. Not good timing. I still need to get my kylux secret santa gift done in the next three days. Yikes.

I'm gonna stop rambling now. Mainly because I want to get up and get something to drink. And if I walk away from this window, I'll never finish and hit post.

So I'm calling it done.

Dang. Well.

Got my meds adjusted about a month ago. I think it's probably as good as it's going to get. Which is a damn sight better than it was for the first three quarters of the year. It's a pain in the ass taking meds three times a day, but having a cellphone really helps. Got alarms set up telling me to take the things.

Meanwhile, I am having trouble reading. Well, I can read. But my brain has been kinda sliding off the words. I can't read fic, which is annoying. Thanks to some of my tumblr followers, I've found some good podficcers. So I can get my fic fix. Though I've not found a reader of Kylux that has a voice/reading style that I like. *shrug* Right now listening to a very long Mad Max Fury Road coffeeshop AU, though that's the center of the story. Max is the one working in the coffeeshop. Furiosa is a mechanic with her own shop.

My birthday is tomorrow. I do have to work, but it's only two classes. Two hours. Branch manager says she's going to get a cake. One of the Chinese teachers had a birthday yesterday too. So that's cool. Also I got myself a gift that arrived this evening. A Genuine Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar set! I have never in my life managed to do an advent calendar properly. I doubt I'll manage it this time. I really want the xmas Poe Dameron.

Speaking of. Did anyone see the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special? I really loved it. Poe Dameron and his bb8 holiday sweater are in this lego set! Sadly, not Kylo or General Hux. :(

Yesterday we had the day off thanks to the weather. The day before off as well, also because of the weather. They had expected a blizzard basically, got an ICE STORM instead. This is my eighth winter here (it's definitely winter now), and it's the first ice storm I've seen here. Others who have been here longer don't remember there being one before. Yeah, they happen every now and again in Kansas, but not here. The ice storm happened. So that was Thursday off (I'm off Thursdays anyway). Then it snowed a decent amount on Thursday, so it was cloudy and cold and nothing thawed out, and they couldn't start dealing with all the downed trees and tree limbs and branches. So yesterday off. Today back to class. None of the area schools had make-up days this weekend unfortunately. Because then we could have had an easier load. But whatever. Work's been as okay as it's going to get.

On Thursday I got the news that my landlady wants to sell my apartment. We're only halfway through a three year lease. So I freaked out for a while. Then set that aside, because it was useless. And also, I'd already started pondering where I wanted to move when my lease was up. I had already decided I didn't want to renew the lease. But moving in winter sucks. Especially because generally once there's been a decent snowfall, the ground stays covered until spring.

Thankfully it looks like I'm going to be able to stay until April because of the way rent is paid here. I was going to say "don't ask", but if you want to know, I'm fine blathering about it. Anyway, an April move is just fine with me. Gives me time *and* a deadline for going through all this stuff and getting rid of a lot of it. I have too much stuff. I've been wanting to get rid of a bunch of it. Now I've got a good reason. Moving is easier with less stuff. ;) But I still have to figure out where I want to live.

I signed up for the Kylux Secret Santa again this year. I'm planning on doing a storybook kind of thing with a lego set. Judging by the length of this post, the problem I'm having with reading is an input processing problem, not an output.

Though that does remind me of a problem I've been having lately at work. I keep swapping names. I'm not forgetting anybody's names. I'll look right at Amy and then say, "What color is your shirt, Kim?" I'll tell the class to take out their class book when I mean activity book and vice versa. Yes yes, that happens. But it's happening in every day in every class. and in between classes in the office, calling the Chinese teachers the wrong names. I really don't like this. Makes me feel stupid. And I'm not stupid.

But I am getting tired, so I'm going to stop now.

As always, questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome.

:) <3

I have always been terrible with oral hygiene. Always. I know taking care of my teeth is important, but it's fucking hard for me.

As a result of the neglect, yet another tooth broke last night. Given that it's got rather sharp edges, and that it was the fucking *third* broken tooth in my mouth, I finally made the call to get to a dentist.

I already hate going to the dentist. Always have. But here I've got the added aggravation of needing to have a translator. Which would be why I've been to the dentist three times since I've been in China - and one of those times was a follow-up to another. The third time was just today.

Today I had two root canals done. TWO. Obviously advancements have been made in the novocaine world because regaining sensation later was not at all awkward or awful or pins-and-needles-y.

But that was just today's visit. To get everything properly fixed, it's going to take a total of 5-6 visits at the total cost of nearly two round-trip changchun-lax flights. *sigh*

At least I can afford to do it. If this were happening back home, well, first of all I would not want to be going out during a pandemic. And second of all, there is no way in hell I would be able to afford it.

Of course, this hasn't helped my depression any. I'm still in a really bad place in my head. School started this past weekend, and while it didn't go horribly, I wouldn't say it went even remotely close to well. On the bright side, I'm apparently being given time/space to get into the swing of things.

My body is very displeased about the sudden change in activity level, and the stairs. Too many stairs that cannot be avoided. Woe.

Bright side, I guess? is that my branch manager (not bosslday) gave me an amended schedule. Which she's not supposed to do, as all schedule changes are supposed to go through bosslady. But I do approve of the changes. There's one less class on it, for starters. The Demo classes (a way we bring in new students) have been removed. I have actual anxiety attacks about demos. I now have extra 'assessment' slots instead. Which I am totally fine with. So there's no reason bosslady wouldn't approve. I suppose branch mgr just wants to avoid having bosslady get shouty at her (because most of the branch managers (there are 10) keep changing schedules).

Whatever. What do you care? (about the inner workings of the company i work for)

I am profoundly depressed and I'd really like to stop now. I'd actually really like to kill myself, but I won't because it would be too much bother. And I'm not so far gone that I would abandon my cats like that. People, yes. Cats, no.

But I'm not going to do myself harm. I'm just going to wait it out, because it will pass. Eventually. Well, I hope it does. The outside world hasn't been on fire to this extent before. Might make a difference.

...start with something like "wow i can't believe it's been # months?"

*sigh*

Just one month. And it's not like anything's been happening. Whole lot of nothing.

The language school did get online classes rolling, but that doesn't really affect me.

The big news actually came yesterday. Primary school is partially reopening next week! Teachers came back starting yesterday. Grades 5 and 6 will start next week. No idea when they'll get down to my grades (1 and 2). I figure as long as we're back for fall, everything will be okay.

I still have a job. I'm still getting paid. Still not full pay, but given that I'm not working, well. It's enough to live on with a little extra.

Enough extra that I ordered a collapsible bathtub today. Really looking forward to soaking. Nice warm baths in the winter. Lovely tepid baths in the summer. Aaaaahhh.

That's like the only news. Seriously.

*shrug*

Hope everyone's doing okay. Keeping safe.

<3