Bearshorty's musings

It's Election Day and Papa will pick me up from work so we could go vote. Then I'm going to stay at my parents' house for the night, before heading to work tomorrow. I'm not very excited for the election because I'm not a huge De Blasio fan, especially having spent the summer working for his Democratic opposition. But at the same time, I'm not going to vote for Lhota and other Republicans. Well, my Dad is going to vote Republican so we are going to cancel each other's votes, so that makes me feel a little better. I will, of course, still go vote because I never take that privilege for granted.

My semester has been busy, mostly with grading so I have not been updating my journal. I do read my reading list often but I should try to keep up with my own journal. So I thought that if I focus on specific topics it might help me update at least a few days a week.

I want to especially talk about books that I've read, so I will do an update on that Friday, once I'm done with grading my writing classes.

Here are some general updates:

Two of my friends had babies. My friend Janna had a daughter Josephine (Jo for short) on October 3rd and my friend Tjamke had a son Jasper on September 30th. I went to visit Janna and Jo a few times (including after a really nice dinner with the girls on Saturday).

On the other side of the spectrum, the father of one of my best friends (Yeva) is dying from liver cancer at 60. He has from a few weeks to a few months. We've been trying to be there for Yeva as much as we can but it all feels pretty useless. So just throwing a lot of positive thoughts their way.

In more pleasant events, one of my friends, a coworker with whom I commuted last year, wrote a play called "Side Street" and got it produced last month. I went to see it with very little expectations. It was staged in this small room, with about 22 people in the audience, with four actors. And it was amazing. I had a really great time. The play is about a mother/daughter relationship. The actors were brilliant and I loved being so close that I could see their every emotion. I'm so glad I went.

And Bear and I just booked a trip to Dominican Republic for December, right after my semester ends. I am so looking forward to just lying on a beach for a whole week. I'm already tired from the semester and all the grading and there are still six weeks to go.

And finally, RS Games 2013 are just nearing their conclusion (Go Team Post-Hogwarts), and people can still vote on the stories. I did like the way mine turned out and I'm continually amazed by the talent of all the writers there.

It's Election Day!

My parents are staying with me since Sunday night, since there is still no heat or power in their house. And they are not expecting it at least until Friday. So they went from extreme cold to extreme heat since in the last couple of day the heating in my apartment building was working overtime.

At least we finally solved the problem of a faulty bedroom heater that was pouring out steam and making our bedroom a sauna with wet walls and condensation. While we are waiting for super or whoever to come look at it, we just took the cover off and turned the heater off inside. It actually still gives off some heat and I even left the window a bit open this morning in both the living room and the bedroom. Finally today the inside temperature is just right and the walls are dry.

Bear left yesterday to his parents' house, so he could vote today, save gas a bit by going to work from his parents' house this week, since gas is still a problem in New York, and also not live in close crowded proximity to my parents making everyone a bit more comfortable. And while I miss him, I recognize the necessity of him being at his parents' house this week. Mostly for voting and saving gas.

Since my parents are here, we all drove our polling station in Staten Island this morning bright and early at 6:30. I'm very glad that the time charge happened this last Sunday, so that I can actually wake up at 6 without a problem. We went to vote and passed many houses that were flooded - lots of furniture and other garbage in front of the house. In my parents' community, more than half the cars were done and marked for hauling away.

I filled out my voting form (I miss the old lever machines). I did vote for one Republican - our state senator, but the rest were all Democratic, of course. Unfortunately, my father managed to convince my mother to vote Republican. Argh. Well, at least I could cancel our my Dad's vote. My voting form wouldn't scan in one of the machines, so I had to switch to another one. At least it worked out. Then, Papa dropped Mama back at their house for the day - to warm it up with gas and clean up more - and drove me to work. He drove me to work yesterday too, that part is pretty nice. For Local College, yesterday and tomorrow, I have to deal with subway changes because of the Hurricane so it is much easier to just carpool right now.

My students at University were very excited that the Writing Program cancelled final exams in order to adjust to the schedule, since we missed a week of classes. We will spend good time on the papers, though and I will have less time at the end to grade them. I wrote Assignment 4 this morning and we had good classes discussing Yoshino, our new reading about "covering."

It is a little weird to be in my apartment with my parents in the next room since this is my space. My Mom is cooking though, so I won't complain.

I'm going to try to catch up a bit on my blog and be more consistent at it. I just get tired at the end of the day and there are many other things I can do.

I did finish reading "Emma" and I am in the middle of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall." My Dad gave it to me as a present so I'm reading it. I'm usually a bit wary of historical novels of English history since I know it a bit too well and the characters need to match to my view of them and not be too off and the time needs to feel authentic enough. And this book is pretty good - I'm not throwing it at the wall or anything. It is about Henry VIII divorce with Thomas Cromwell, a London lawyer, as the main character. My brain is being weird. It took me seeing Jane Seymour's name several times to stop for my brain confusing her with Jane Grey. My brain is clearly too tired.