Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Two weeks ago today, the website for my work was the victim of a cyber attack. That attack came right at midterm and at a time when students were already feeling incredibly overwhelmed. Not being able to get into the site to complete work and to communicate with their instructors sent some students into a tailspin. While our fantastic IT people were able to get some components of the site up and running last week, the damage had already been done. About half of my students in two classes are MIA. I've been posting announcements, trying to entice them to return to class, but so far, I've only heard from three or four. They'll be back, they say. I hope so. 2020 just keeps piling on. I learned ten minutes ago a colleague passed away yesterday. He was the same age I am. 56. Earlier this semester, a member of our Board of Trustees passed away. He was 57. Seems far too young. I know, though, living to see tomorrow is never a given. For anyone. Still . . . Now I'm finding myse

Three words. Japanese sweet potato. Seriously delicious, so much so that if I were of the mind, I would eat one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And as a snack between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But I won't. Instead, I'll eat a half of one for lunch and save the other half for tomorrow. That way, I can be incredibly happy today and tomorrow just because of this purple skinned, yellow fleshed lovely sweet tater. For the past week, my work's website has been down. The whole kit and kaboodle. An entire week. We've been told it was a breach/hack, and it has affected every part of the website. I haven't been able to work since last Sunday, which has totally thrown me off my routine. Just another curve ball added to this crap show that is 2020. So far today, I've not received a text about what will happen tomorrow, and when I tried to get into the website I was met with nothing. This whole situation has been quite surreal. So, to fill my time through the week, I d