Recovered (I think)

Thanks for all your kind messages, wishing me well. What a miserable week of ear infections and acne woes that was. You'll be pleased to read that I am much better. My ear infection has cleared up. My acne treatment is ongoing but it will be some time before this becomes apparent. 

In the meantime, I am trying to look less red on my Zooms. I found a filter that achieves that but makes me look like a three day old corpse. I have yet to decide what I find less disturbing - ruddy red or cadaverous pale. I'll play with lighting next. Maybe a ring light I can attach to my large screen? Back in the days when I was teaching in the lecture theatre, I never worried about stuff like that. All I needed to feel confident was good notes and my Doc Martens Mary Jane heels. Now, with everything recorded, I am less confident. I don't just worry about my appearance, I also spend a lot of time editing my audio recordings. On a positive note, on a visual representation of my recorded voice, I recognise intakes of breath with precision. Also the door bell and dog barks. A useful skill, yes? I'll add it to the skills section on my CV.

The first week of term is going well. I think. A few hiccups with our newly updated virtual learning environment and the usual proportion of students that do not read messages or announcements, or would prefer for these to be hand-delivered to their their homes, preferably written on parchment and sealed with wax. Maybe accompanied by an expressive dance. One student (a few years ago) asked me to communicate with their PA. I am not kidding. It may be not surprising that I often feel the urge to scream. Alas, the vast majority of students are really keen and engaged.

In other news, I am agonising over paint colours and degrees of matt-ness. "Deep fossil" or "natural slate"? On the colour chart, these are very similar shades of medium dark grey. The last time I saw a fossil, it was brownish beige and we have a slate roof, which looks nothing like "natural slate", it is a deep dark grey. To think that someone is probably paid to do market research on paint names. I assume the name is about the market appeal, rather than the actual colour. Me, I like HEX codes or RGB codes or descriptors like medium dark grey. The paint is destined to adorn our hallway walls. 

Finally, Jack has learned to levitate. I find him in all sorts of high places, looking for food. Unfortunately, he has not mastered coming down from high places yet. Imperfect levitation! I wonder if he is developing dog dementia, manifesting, for now, with stubbornness. Richard of course ridicules this idea, saying that trying to steal food is nothing new. That is true, but not to the extent he does now. Right now Jack is having a wee snooze after a busy early morning of raiding teen bedrooms, looking for cereal bowls and other assorted potentially edible things. 

I don't have many photos on my phone for the past few weeks, just a few random ones of splashes of colour in our garden. 

Thanks for visiting 🙂