"Umm, okay. No possibility of taking a walk today."

23 December 2022: My post's title comes from my thought about a block into my walk early this afternoon. Though it was in the 30s at around 7:00, by the time I set out, the temperatures had plummeted 20 degrees. (And right now, it's 6 degrees out.) The wind has died down, but at 11:00 a.m.? I struggled to walk. And then I thought, "Okay, maybe just a quick walk the other way" and found myself being blown forward. And the cold was intense. 

So...see the post's title. (Yes, a shout-out to Jane Eyre, too.)

Still managed to hit 10K today, almost entirely from pacing around the house on writing and chore breaks, with an assist to the brief trip I took to Food Lion. 

The kids got jokes...

18 November 2022: Limping (metaphorically) into Thanksgiving Break, but we did it. A whole lot of today (and this week) was spent meeting one-on-one with students working on their final projects. This is important and tiring work, but they keep me on my toes, especially when they have jokes.

The entire man...

17 February 2021: Day Four of Jane Eyre discussion and the students are unanimous in their view of Rochester. I was playing some mean devil's advocate, but the #youth weren't having it. (This does make me feel reassured re: their romantic choices.) Seventy pages or so to go and I don't imagine their opinions will change much.

Jane Eyre jokes...

12 February 2021: Me today, working hard to get the #youth to relate to Jane Eyre: “Adele Varens enters, a ten-year old French kid singing the 19th-c. equivalent of a Nicki Minaj song…” (This is a joke with a very limited audience but, as is often the case, I think I am hilarious.)

More from Jane Eyre

25 September 2019: "We were born to strive and endure--you as well as I: do so." --Jane to Rochester, in Jane Eyre.

What a pleasure to re-read this intense and crazy scene from Brontë's novel. 

Sigh...

21 September 2018: "No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,—a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless." --Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Working my way through the pre-attic-revelation section of the book again. Continually awed by Brontë's ability to capture so perfectly what this kind of longing and love can feel like. The scene a chapter or so earlier, where Jane tears into herself over ever imagining that Rochester could love her? Brutal.