This past week was the start of online teaching at my university. Because I teach a mostly-international student population, and also have students whose homes do not have reliable internet connections, I’ve been working to create “asynchronous” modules for them to complete when they can. And I’m “homeschooling” my kid. It’s…a lot.
I thought I’d try to make weekly posts every Sunday recapping what we’re up to during this weird time, but it turns out that’s maybe a little too much to add to my already overflowing plate. So this one’s a day late!
I’ll start with the knitting progress: I finished the back of my Wardie cardigan!
This was my first time doing cabled decreases, and I’m just so delighted with how “fancy” they look:
I feel like this pattern is the perfect balance between “mindless stockinette” and “interesting enough to keep me wanting to knit” right now. There are new techniques to learn, which I love, but once I’ve learned them, I can use them over and over in a very predictable way. That’s perfect for where my brain is right now.
As for what we’ve been up to otherwise, well, we’ve been trying to get outdoors a little bit, when it’s not raining. Spring is still springing, despite everything going on in the world!
My daughter has basically inherited my Baa-ble hat – she’s just so stinking cute in it!
It’s been lovely, too, to see the messages our neighbors have been putting out in chalk:
This weekend, it was even warm enough to let some fresh air into the house while we baked and cleaned!
My daughter had her first Zoom-based violin lesson:
And we were able to get an exercise bike set up in our basement so that we can get a little bit of exercise even though the Y is closed:
Here’s one other good thing that happened this past week: remember the situation with my former department that I mentioned a couple years back? On Friday, the university settled with my friends and former mentors who brought the lawsuit for $9.4 million dollars. I’m so relieved that this ended with a settlement in favor of the complainants, because they were so very right to raise the issues they raised, and this settlement proves that (the university can say whatever they want about how they’re not admitting any fault and their insurance is footing the bill…I still don’t think you settle for nearly $10 million dollars when you think you’re going to prevail in court). But I’m also relieved because it means that I can’t be compelled to testify in court; unfortunately, the settlement happened late enough in the game that the university’s lawyers did have access to the signed witness statement I gave to the lawyers for the complainants, which is…a really weird thing given that they’re also my employer, so it’s not like I got to stay as anonymous as I might have liked even without it going to court. But it was important to me that the truth get out and that I corroborate everything I could, because the university was going out of their way to frame my friends and former mentors as liars, and I *knew* that they were not lying – that toxic environment *was* my grad school experience. The truth was worth the risk, but I’m just so glad it’s over.
So, that was our week! I cast on for the first of the two fronts on Saturday, and am already past the pocket section – I’ll share pictures of that next week!
Stay safe, stay well!
whit::knits 