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  • Getting busy!

    The good news is it’s getting busy.

    This thread is about how that kind of good news can change your days. A new baby in the house, a new job, moving, starting new projects … yeah, all that. Post it here.

    Please start every post (that’s not a response) with “It’s getting busy.”

  • #2
    It’s getting busy.

    Okay, sure, I’m semi-retired, I don’t “need” to work. I had the gee whiz payday 20 years ago when Telemundo got bought out, so money’s never going to be a problem again. And I’ve done a few things since then, just because I could, and because I wanted to. Like spending a few years in West Africa writing features for a wire service. And then I came home, and a couple years later, got bored, and went looking for a job. Because I wanted to.

    For the past 14 years, I’ve been teaching part time or full time or whatever for whatever college met my minimum standards (like being regionally accredited), and then I got a bit pickier after seeing close up how these for-profit colleges were scamming everyone from their down-on-their-luck students to the federal government’s student aid programs.

    I loved teaching at the Art Institute in Miami, but they closed down because the hedge fund that bought them out took it right past the edge of legal and ended up at the receiving end of hundreds of millions in fines. That’d be a for instance.

    So now I only teach at a school I know deep down in my bones is doing right by my students. That college is now five hundred miles away. But when my chair begged me to keep on picking up classes, teaching “live,” I didn’t hesitate much even though I knew I’d be spending a lot of time turning six acres in south Georgia into a proper compound for hunting and growing.

    Yes, I’m vegetarian. But Kenny’s not, and the deer tracks are calling. And Libby wants to grow things, and it’s something she’ll be able to do even as her eyes are failing, which is happening.

    But back to getting busy.

    Spring last year and Fall this year my classes weren’t making. Not the ones I was asking for, anyway. So I was worried this wasn’t sustainable, especially after checking what local colleges are around here, which is not many, and what local might mean, which doesn’t mean close by. I was thinking it might be the end of teaching for me. I was sad.

    And then this semester, this Spring, either my “live” rep has spread or something changed with the students, but suddenly my classes are popular.

    I spent the last three days squeezing in late adds, doing quick SnagIts for them giving the basics on how to find the first meeting’s orientation recording. There’s a lot more work to do to get these guys underway. Yes, some of them are never going to get going. And yes, those are the kids who are going to use up most of my time. But last term, I dragged four of those kids across the finish line, working with them one on one across computer screens, building alternate pathways to let them pass with a level of mastery that’d make me satisfied, and I’m not easily satisfied.

    This can work, all of it. It’s going to work. But it’s getting busy.

    Comment


    • #3
      I've felt like i've been in a holding pattern for quite a while. I've been struggling with a severe sleep disorder that's been really hampering my progress. I think i'm getting a handle on it though and once I can reliably trust that i'll get some quality z's at night, I want to get back at it. I had my nose to the grindstone really hard from about 2015 to about last year this time when the insomnia became a monster in my life.

      That's cool that you're a vegetarian. I tried an all veggie diet a few years ago for about 3 months. Ya know, I could be a vegetarian if I had a cook that would prepare gourmet vegetable meals everyday for me. It takes a lot of effort to make savory meals with just vegetables. Say you live in South GA? I live just North of you near Athens. There is a vegetarian restaurant here called the Grit that I frequent whenever I venture into town.

      Getting busy has been difficult for me but I know what I must do. 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration.

      Comment


      • #4
        It's getting busy!

        My one-year-old is walking everywhere, is endlessly curious, and getting into everything. She also loves chocolate. (She ransacked some of Dad's Andes mints the other day and was very proud of herself. She may have eaten a wrapper.)
        I DENOUNCE DONALD J. TRUMP AND ALL HIS IMMORAL ACTS.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Zymologist View Post
          It's getting busy!

          My one-year-old is walking everywhere, is endlessly curious, and getting into everything. She also loves chocolate. (She ransacked some of Dad's Andes mints the other day and was very proud of herself. She may have eaten a wrapper.)
          The wrapper adds to the experience.

          Comment


          • #6
            It’s getting busy.

            When you ask someone from the boonies if they’re from the boonies and they want to deny it, they point at me … now living in the real and actual dead center of nowhere. I mean, they’ve got a stoplight! I don’t. Which is nice in a lot of ways. No building inspectors for instance. Sure the county checked things out after we first pulled power across the road to bring it up to habitable, but they won’t be back. So no building permits, either.

            In other ways, if you can’t do it yourself, it’s gonna take some time to get someone out to do it for you. Most of six months clearing and reclearing land to begin with, cause I don’t personally own a dozer, and then we needed to re-channel the creek and I wanted a pond and then a bigger pond and a few more things and every extra job meant extra waiting. And more months to get the septic and well guys out here. And a whole lot longer to get someone to lay a concrete pad for me. There’s only one team the locals trust, so I waited for him to fit me in. I’m building a container condo and it needed something to sit on.

            But it’s in now, and cured, and I’ve got some guys coming over next weekend to move the first container on board. One 40-foot highboy. (Gotta wait for the shipping snarls to untangle before I can buy more.) And then the electric team to relocate the feeder line. From there, I’ll be able to start work on the interior, cutting windows and doors, welding supports, building in the subfloor and ceiling, and insulating all about. I’ll be decking out the top and designing stairways up as soon as soon as the interior is done. I want a place up above the bugs in summer. I did rehab carpentry back in Chicago, so this is all old hat for me.

            This is all in addition to the regular land work, foresting and and planking fallen trees for rustic-style materials. As much as possible, I want to avoid “store bought” wood, cause I’ve got plenty here.

            Life is good, but it’s getting busy.

            Comment

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