Tangents and Positive Thinking as Schtick

This trying not to complain for a few days is already proving difficult.

Wait. Is that a complaint? Aigh. Let's try again.

This trying not to complain for a few days is already proving difficult a worthwhile experience that is pushing me to new limits and realizations.

That's better. Unfortunately, it means I don't have such a well thought-out post for today. That has resulted in a more free-form sort of post. In the past 24 hours, as I've been undertaking this new adventure with a smile on my face, I've found myself pondering the following things:

• drawing a cartoon with a superhero called "Riot Grrl," intended as a positive feminst role-model, whose arch-nemesis would be "FemiNazi" would be the straw-woman my students often make feminism out to be. Unfortunately, I cannot draw, but I have a great script if anyone is interested. What a great opportunity for me to learn to draw, unless someone would like to collaborate which would be keen, too!
  
• how much my insurance is paying beyond my copay for a physical therapist to have me do an exercise I was taught in first grade
• the unintended consequences of race in teaching (see here - particularly the comments for what started this thought process)
• where are the eligible women in my age bracket have gone from the place I currently live and whether this would have been considered a plague in Biblical times, assuming of course that women counted in the Bible how fortunate I am, as a single male, to be in place that makes it so easy to focus on my career, which is good because some naysayers might compare this to a Biblical plague only to then use that comparison as a negative commentary on the foundational text of one of the world's major religions
  
• what I was thinking assigning weekly essays to my two largest classes and how when I make it out of this term alive (ha! you thought I was going to say something that needed to be struck out, didn't you?) I will be much more cautious for at least two to three days in choosing what assignments to hand out
• that probably only my father would have appreciated the reply, "No, I'm not such a grand uncle. I'm really kind of average." to his phoned announcement that my niece just had a baby girl as much as I enjoyed making it
  
• how wise it was of me to spend extra money on a boxed set of John Lee Hooker's music at this time in my life (answer: so very, very!)
  

There was other stuff. But the stack of essays appears to be growing as I type this.