Gratitude & celebration in a time of darkness/growing light

It's been a bit, but mostly because things have been going well. The holidays brought new ways to celebrate even as we miss the old ways this year.  One is the making of a pretty intense gingerbread house (collaboration) and a yule log (individual round, but wouldn't have happened without encouragement). 

Gingerbread house collaboration

My first Yule Log.

Thanks to the pleural catheter (Pleurx), I'm enjoying longer, faster walks and the basic ability to climb steps without gasping. I'm no road runner, but I'll take it. Breathing is key, as far too many know these days. I'm grateful there was a fix for this. I've a short hike planned for this morning and hoping for longer in the future.

Otherwise treatment goes pretty well. I don't have a lot of side effects, and while some of my white cell counts are low, as far as I know, I'm good for cycle three (in the second half of cycle two currently). I had my second Zometa yesterday, and so far just a little fatigue. Thanks to the nurses at Christ Hospital Montgomery for making that a fairly quick, painless process. 

Other winter break activities: I'm reading Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) by Susan Blum and becoming more convinced that the structures we have in academia and education as a whole are detrimental to students (and us) and that there are better ways to do this. Grateful for UCBA for starting me on this journey via their emphasis on student learning and cultural understanding (great faculty learning community) and then an invitation at Wheaton to join a reading community where we read and discussed Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. The major points in this book, that learning should be an act of freedom, students should be fully engaged in all aspects of learning, and dialogue is essential have changed my pedagogy by encouraging me to seek out concrete methods to give students choice and open more lines of two way communication. However, ungrading might be the next logical step in praxis (a word I learned from Freire and am hopefully using correctly). I'm prone to take major steps in pedagogy, well at least once I learned about team based learning, then modify over time. Still working my way through the book, but have some ideas. Next on the reading list is Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks. I can't change the world, but I can change my classroom by removing structures that oppress. Anyways, hold me to that.

Being flexible and curious as we meet the challenge day after day of this pandemic is tough, but necessary. I don't know if my treatment is working, but I hope to see signs soon (growing light perhaps?). And we will know more at the end of January when scans are completed. I find myself very nervous about that. What is this treatment doesn't work? I know there are next options, but I'd like some certainty (haha, who wouldn't??). As the light grows and the cold socks us in, persist. We can make it a few more months, and there is rumor that the President-elect will mobilize for greater vaccine production.  With mass vaccination will come herd immunity and a new normal with greater freedom and lower risk. Hold tight to the light, it is coming. And yes, I'm working to convince myself as well as you :-)

Miss you my friends and thanks for reading (especially if you made it through my random pedagogy paragraph).