Greetings, Internet! I hope everyone’s staying as safe and sane as can be. This week, I started doing the FES cycle for the first time since surgery, I spent way too long audio mixing a song, and my mother got her first covid vaccine shot! Daily summaries below!

Day Three Hundred and Sixteen (1/22/21)

• Surgery follow-up. Everything’s looking good, so, just have to keep doing what I’m doing. Going to try doing the FES cycle tomorrow.
• My mother and I brought some takeout back to my apartment.
• Finished the final teaching module, and now some people from my program’s Teaching Center have to watch me give a five-minute lesson to evaluate my teaching capabilities. I have no idea why this is supposed to take 1.5 hours on Zoom, but I guess it’s happening.
• Done with Book Two of Gregory of Tours’ “Life of Saint Martin,” and am a third of the way through Book Three.
• FaceTimed my sister and niece! My two-year-old niece spelled her name today and recited the first three lines of “Humpty Dumpty”! She’s so amazing, I can’t even.
• Total times outside: Forty-six!
• Currently feeling: Today was super productive. Feels good.
• Currently looping: The Pierces’ “You’ll Be Mine” live. It’s like a creepy fairytale of a song, and I love it.

Day Three Hundred and Seventeen (1/23/21)

• Did a test run of thirty minutes on the FES cycle. I think it went well! Hooray for more exercise!
• Finished Book Three of Gregory of Tours’ “The Life of Saint Martin”! Just have to do Book Four and figure out the best way to analyze and organize the material. I think there are at least three things that really stick out, and I’m very lucky in that my advisor is such an expert on Gregory, because I have many questions to ask him.
• Phone call with my sister! She and my brother-in-law are house-hunting on the West Coast and I love talking real estate with them (it’s just really fun to look at houses).
• Looking up video cameras. Once the semester’s over and I’ve got a few dissertation chapter drafts in the bag, I am totally learning how to up my game with video.
• Watched more “Clone Wars.” Just a few episodes away from finishing season two!
• Currently feeling: Yet again, going to bed after midnight because I tried to fit too much into the day. Tomorrow shall be another attempt at doing all of the things.
• Currently looping: KT Tunstall’s “Hold On” (Live from Glastonbury 2008).

Day Three Hundred and Eighteen (1/24/21)

• Decided that today would be my one day of the week that would be music-focused. Recorded a cover to post on Thursday.
• #triotime! Started to feel some optimism about dating apps, and then decided against them. I give up.
• Recorded the audio for another cover. Just have to film the visual and maybe I can post it next week? Or wait another week to post? I don’t know, it all depends on how the semester kicks off.
• “Avengers: Endgame” is on TNT. So, of course that’s on in the background.
• Briefly FaceTimed my sister and niece! She can count to seventeen! Holy cow!
• Currently feeling: At the moment, I’ve decided to set one day a week aside for music (i.e. either Saturday or Sunday). The rest will be purely academic. 
• Currently looping: Rihanna’s “We Found Love.”

Day Three Hundred and Nineteen (1/25/21)

• Did half an hour on the FES cycle. Felt fine. Maybe I can try for 45 minutes soon-ish.
• Music lesson! What do you think of me switching up the content on my channel? Say, including some medieval lessons? Vlogs? Perhaps I can introduce my whole musical setup? I’m open to video ideas (to be clear, these would be alternating with covers).
• Got my blood test results back from my general checkup. Shocked, utterly shocked, to learn that I am not vitamin D deficient. Not even sure how that’s possible given how little I go outside.
• Teaching Zoom meeting. Figured out how to set up my university Zoom account, set up a room, and also set up scheduled office hours.
• Audio mixed a cover that I need to film. Not sure when I can film it, but I’d like to have it up next week, time permitting.
• I think I found a video equipment bundle that looks pretty good. It’s just really expensive, and I was going to use what I’ve saved up to buy a new laptop. Oh dear.
• Read an article for next week’s precept.
• Currently feeling: I’m feeling ambitious AF and I’m here for it.
• Currently looping: The Decemberists’ “Sons and Daughters.”

Day Three Hundred and Twenty (1/26/21)

• My advisor postponed our meeting for next week, which is good, because I need the extra time to finish Gregory’s Life of Saint Martin.
• My mother’s here!
• Microteaching session! So now I have the approval of my university to teach undergraduates.
• Finished the article I needed to read for this week’s reading group. It’s about the concept of the père de famille in eighteenth-century France, and how it was used to judge whether the fathers of ten (!) or more children could apply for emergency funds from the king. It’s fun to read things outside of my field.
• More audio mixing! I think I’m a fan of it now.
• Currently feeling: I’m starting to think that thing I needed surgery for was depleting my energy for the past three months, because the more things I’ve been putting on my to-do list, the more energy I’ve had. Maybe it’s an extended adrenaline rush. Who knows?
• Currently looping: An acoustic rendition of Lindsey Stirling’s “Underground.”

Day Three Hundred and Twenty-One (1/27/21)

• Did nearly an hour on the FES cycle. Felt fine.
• My mother got her first covid vaccine shot! She managed to get an appointment purely by chance (as in, she checked a site at the right time). Just waiting for people with underlying conditions to be eligible next. I suppose that’ll be when the hugest rush will begin and we’re going to really go Hunger Games on each other for vaccinations.
• Finished Gregory’s Life of Saint Martin!
• Read a bit of an article about widows in the changing law codes of Late Antique Rome. Very cool. Will finish tomorrow.
• I need to stop audio mixing this cover. Mostly because I think I’ve finally figured out the volume issues. Rather than raise the volume of a single track (which will raise the volume of everything else, including random room echoes or air), I just duplicate it. I had to triple it this time because silly me forgot to plug my guitar into the audio interface (well, not “forgot” so much as “wanted to see how things would sound if I just used the microphone”). Note to self: plug in your guitar next time.
• Got to briefly FaceTime my niece as she got ready for bed! As soon as she saw me, she asked for her grandmother. According to my mother, she asks for me when she FaceTimes her, so at least now I know my niece just likes to ask for whoever isn’t immediately on the screen.
• Late night because I had to reclean the wound area. Maybe I didn’t have to, but I started worrying about a catheter issue, the wound site was pretty close to it, maybe it was fine, but I would not have been able to sleep on the off chance that it wasn’t fine, so that was an extra half an hour to my night (and a very long run-on sentence to go with it).
• Currently feeling: Tired, but at least the wound is clean.
• Currently looping: Lorde’s “Yellow Flicker Beat.”

Day Three Hundred and Twenty-Two (1/28/21)

• Watched more “Clone Wars.”
• Posted my cover of “Cups” from “Pitch Perfect.” I first learned the cup sequence back during the summer of 2013, when I was doing thesis research and needed a break. It took two hours to get it just right, and it’s become my favorite party trick since then (although I tend to mess it up rather badly while drunk. I should work on that).
• Recorded the video portion for next week’s video. I look like I’m mumbling for the first half of the song, but I guess it’ll do.
• Briefly FaceTimed my sister and niece! My niece immediately asked for my mother, and then asked to see Hello Kitty.
• Read a bit more of an article I started yesterday.
• Finally opened my mail after about a couple of weeks. There was a lot to catch up on.
• Currently feeling: That moment when you think you’ve gotten a lot done and then realize you need to organize the things you got done (i.e. put notes together into coherent thoughts for meetings next week).
• Currently looping: The I’m With Her NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert. I never realized how much I love folk/bluegrass until midway through last year.

Thanks so much for reading! Stay safe, wear a mask, and tell your friends who qualify to get vaccinated!