As you can see, I have decided to be realistic. I changed the blog name to “The Dallying Dilettante” instead of “The Daily Dilettante” because I’m done with pushing unrealistic expectations. Plus, I know I am lazy. Authentic, but lazy. Authentically lazy.
I am back here in hopes that I can share a little more with you on several levels. I have claimed to be many things, but I have yet to prove it. Let me see if I can give you a little update on what I have been up to since I last wrote in, what, 2019?
Writer: My writing has largely been put on hold, other than creating lesson plans. I do love creating lesson plans, though, and have recently begun sharing them with some lovely kids. I am teaching poetry classes, partially in hopes that it will encourage me to write my own poetry. I tend to write poems in times of high emotion, and not so much when I’m just living day to day. Let’s see if I can turn that around and find inspiration in the day to day.
Educator: As I have mentioned, I have been writing lesson plans. Mostly because I have begun teaching on Outschool.com. You can read more on this venture under the Educator tab on this site. I am totally loving this. Despite my love for my old teaching job, especially the students, I left Rocketship after the 2018-2019 school year. I was feeling a disconnect from staff, and beginning to feel very isolated. There were a few incidents that occurred that made me feel isolated and excluded, and since there was a looming change in leadership, I felt it was a good time to leave. I think it was fortuitous, as the following school year ended in chaos with the pandemic, and soon after, my husband received a job offer which necessitated a move. I honestly feel as if the 2019-2020 school year would not have been good for my mental health. I feel much more settled now, and while a move to online teaching is slow going and scary at first, I think it’s going to be a great learning experience for me and my students. I’m really excited to be working with tweens and teens again, as that was where my career began. Smaller groups are also my thing, and I am loving it.
Artist: This is where I have bloomed in the last few years. As my writing waned a bit, I needed a creative outlet. Obviously, I began Art Journaling in the summer of 2018, and I haven’t stopped. I also had a serious 5-month long love affair with acrylic pour painting. It was really only put to an end by burnout, and then the need to pack up things for a two-state move. I was left with over 100 canvases (not all of which are masterpieces, but…) I gave some away, and some decorate my walls. They bring me joy when I see them. After my art stuff was packed away, I was a little lost for a while, until I was inspired to start playing with makeup. This was soon followed by an obsession with wigs. Since I wasn’t doing much art on canvas, I was doing it ON MY FACE. To be honest, it brings me pleasure. It’s reminiscent of the joy I found as a child playing dress up, and later doing theatre and going to cons, neither of which I have done for years. In this space, I don’t really have space to be messy, so I have continued working on my mixed-media art, both in journals, and on canvas.
Adventurer: Obviously, Covid. Due to my connections with people in the Food Health and Safety field, I have been extraordinarily cautious over the last year. These are the guys who are in charge of zoonotic diseases (the kind that jump from animals to people), so I have been made aware of information from studies that weren’t yet published and have been privy (albeit second-hand) to conversations from the top experts. In some cases, the alarms sounded turned out to be okay (for example, the blood-clots, which are easily curable) but for others, not so much (the variants that bypass vaccines.) I’m one of those “alarmists” but everything I have heard has come to pass, so I’m just cautious.
Regardless, in February 2020, when Covid news was coming mainly from China, and just starting to pop its ugly head up in Europe, My husband and I flew to India to visit his parents. It wasn’t my first time in India, and I hope it won’t be my last. On our way home, the news hit us that the first cases were beginning to emerge in the United States (in fact, in the very city where I now live.) Because we had been on an airplane and had flown through Europe, we decided to self quarantine for 14 days. This was on February 28. On March 1st and 2nd, I did go to the store to shop (and I did buy toilet paper, but not all of it.) That was the last time I left my house until the following May, when I ventured out for one day to take a walk in a cemetery, where I figured there’s be very few people.
Things aren’t quite back to normal, of course, but I’m hopeful. I am in the process of renewing my passport, but in light of the immense tragedy going on in India, I doubt my visa will be able to be renewed any time soon. Until then, I pray for the safety of my family there.
As it is, I have plenty of adventures from the past that I can post about. I will make time to do so in the near future.
Writer * Educator * Artist * Adventurer 