A bit of a melange

It's October already! Life continues to be full and busy. I'm slightly less tired than I was a few weeks ago, and only 30% as scared on the way to and from school. Yesterday Terry used my bike to pick up the kids since I had a staff meeting after classes, and he got a flat tire, so I was spared (ha ha) from having to deal with that. I'm still, overall, really enjoying biking. 

So, can anyone identify the tree that is in this picture, with the broader/bigger leaves? There are lemon, tangerine, and olive trees in the garden at school, and the students are telling me that this new tall tree (upper left quadrant) is an avocado. I'm skeptical but willing to be convinced! 

In yarn-related news, I'm very excited to have all these beautiful new yarns from Indigo Dragonfly! I ordered them a while ago, before I knew whether we would be able to go to the US this summer or not and they'e been living at Rosanne's house. Now a friend of hers has unexpectedly come to Albania and he was able to bring them to me. Yarn heaven! One of these days I will have the energy to decide what to knit next, download the patterns, and get started. The pinkish one is Corona-virus themed (it's named for Dr. Tam, who has headed up the Canadian response to Covid-19; the pattern includes "droplets" in sets of 19 and the colors are based on a photo of the virus).

We recently went past this mural, which you can see has been repainted to match our current reality. 

This is what it looked like before: 

Masks are starting to feel normal, to the point that I showed my students a photo of a crowd of people in Tokyo from several years ago and their reaction was "it's so strange that they're not wearing masks!"

Next week is Fall Break! We're hoping to go somewhere outside Tirana 

Self-Care

At our team retreat last month, we spent some time talking about self-care. It was interesting to me to think about how individualized our thinking about this is; it is my responsibility to know what I need and to talk steps to get those needs met. Which is fine, I'm not saying it isn't my responsibility. But it's also interesting to ask the question, what if we thought about self-care more collectively, more communally? To circle around the most vulnerable or the injured, to ask how are we doing and not just how am I doing?

But I've also been asking myself this question: what would be different in my life if I actually believed that it's okay for me to feel good, to be happy, to enjoy life? That I'm allowed to enjoy good things without feeling guilty or like I'm stealing from the cosmic company? And I realized that one of the corollaries of that belief would be taking better care of myself: sleep, exercise, eating well, hobbies.

I've been enjoying these Dreamscope photo filters so, so much. I also decided to take half-days once a week, Wednesdays (my supervisor has been urging me to do this for a long time). So far, it's been great.

Jet Plane

We're going on Home Leave really soon, Saturday in fact! I'm pretty excited - blueberry picking season! Farmer's Market! We'll still be working a bit but hoping for some fun times. Also lots to do this week before we go.

Gabriel has his first loose tooth, by the way!

And I'm still having fun playing with the Dreamscope app as stress relief: