state of bedlam

My heat got fixed two weeks ago and seems to be holding steady -- they replaced the last part in the furnace that could possibly be replaced, after replacing all the other parts in the interim, so after five weeks of Furnace Hell it so far seems to be fine. I do keep reflexively checking both the thermostat and the vents whenever the heat actually kicks on.

I've had bessyboo visiting for the past few weeks (she actually arrived the day the furnace was fixed), so that has been fun if occasionally anxiety-inducing since she came to help get the house and also my life in order.

Basically everything in my life slipped while I was dealing with the furnace saga. I saw my advisor two Fridays past at a workshop on medieval facsimiles and I think my level of near-hysterical apology actually impressed on her that the furnace situation had been more serious than e-mail had made it seem. Last week I had my in-class observation on the class I'm teaching, and then a meeting with her afterwards about my preliminary dissertation prospectus, both of which seemed to go well? Mostly because after the furnace got fixed and Bessy got here I went into a hysterical work state over the course of a week and produced a ten-page preliminary prospectus and a four-page preliminary bibliography in order to prove to my advisor that I actually did care and had been thinking about it, on top of all my usual class prep. (writing two seventy-minute lectures a week is a lot, actually.)

On spring break now -- another friend came for the weekend and left yesterday; we've been making Disney ears for a trip to WDW in June and then Disneyland in August along with Star Wars Celebration Anaheim. (I have accidentally become a Disney Parks person.)

I am, understandably, pretty high anxiety right now because I'm fairly high anxiety anyway, and, well. *gestures at COVID-19* I'm glad I didn't go back to Washington for break like I had initially hoped for. My university has been warning us we may have to switch to online teaching and has been running emergency online teaching workshops; I took a six-week class on online teaching and taught an online class last year so if we do have to I'm probably better prepared for it than anyone else in my department. So far Emory hasn't closed campus or moved to online classes yet, but we are on spring break at present. My department, as of today, just cancelled our admitted students visit next week. (And I just checked the website and between when I checked yesterday and now Emory Healthcare does have a patient with COVID-19.) Emory is...well, Emory, and this is a university and a university hospital that are so highly noted as being ~on top of medical things, with the CDC literally next door, so this is probs one of the better case university scenarios? IDK. maybe our undead genderqueer skeleton patron god will help somehow. (Emory is very weird at the best of times.)

It is not exactly a great time for my anxiety at present, and it's never great. (Especially considering I have an on-and-off cough that I've had since the furnace situation started and which has never fully gone away. FUN TIMES.)

ETA: Well, Emory extended spring break by a week, is closing the dorms, and moving to remote learning, so *screams*