I would say that this week has been uneventful, but that's not true at all. Still, that's a story for another day. Other than that, this week has actually been uneventful. Dear Husband went back to work and his office is desperately preparing for the week from hell that will be next week with express registration.
Naturally, DH woke up coughing, congested, and pitiful this morning, so we stayed home from church. He must not be too sick, though, because his cat isn't bothering him, and she can get very attentive when you aren't feeling well.
In other news, we got the bill from the hospital for his misadventure with the utility knife over Thanksgiving, and that was a reason to give thanks, given that we are paying about ten percent of the entire hospital bill. It was rather wonderful.
This week, I mostly knocked about the house. Did some laundry, regular housework, and while DH was working hard, I honestly lazed about a bit. To be fair, I haven't felt very well this week, but as I start back Monday myself, I've been unashamedly taking advantage of the time off to sleep. The grand sum of the work I've done this week was to file a grade change form, and revise two of my syllabi (but not the schedules). I'll finish all of that up this week. I have two meetings Monday, work registration on Tuesday, and have meetings on Thursday and Friday, so I'll be in and out of the office with plenty of time to work.
It's been on the cooler side of things in South Texas this week. Temperatures have (*gasp*) dipped below freezing one or two nights this week! Day time temps have been in the forties, and people are wearing their heavy coats, hats, and gloves. Meanwhile, I keep going out in a hoodie or pullover, and get strange looks from the natives, who think I've gone crazy, because winter with temperatures well below zero, as they have been back home, are much more 'winter-y' to me.
I suppose I should rephrase my earlier statement. It has mostly been uneventful here. Like many people, I've followed the events in France during and following the attack on Charlie Hebdo with horror. It's been one of those things that's hit particularly hard for me, because I make my living with words--teaching, reading, writing--words make up my life.
Yes, Charlie Hebdo's cartoons were often offensive and racist. No, that did not mean that anyone there deserved what happened to them. Ideally, freedom of speech means that you can share ideas freely and without retribution for them. Realistically, it also means that you can share yourself being a general asshole about subjects from A to Z. But supporting freedom of speech often means supporting speech that you personally find distasteful.
At the same time this week--unnoticed and unreported by most news sources--an NAACP office in Colorado was also the site of an attempted bombing. These events are truly frightening, and I don't really know what to say about them. What do we do? How can we be agents of love and peace in a world where such awful things can happen?
It's something I've been contemplating this week, and that I imagine I will continue to contemplate in weeks ahead. In the meantime, all I can do is continue to hope and pray that the human race can somehow find themselves to be the good, kind people we know that we can actually be.
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