(no subject)

I am a force for good in the world. I know this today with sense absolute.

My students have not discovered the joys of punning. Only one of them actually knew what puns were. Their homework is to research puns (and they were huddled round the computer when I left) and to commit a whole page of really vile puns within the week.

Cue evil laugh for next week, when a roomful of newly-educated punsters is let loose on the world!

There was a reason for this. There usually is.

Today so many of us in the class had bad pain. As well as teaching the fine art of punning, I made everyone work with the pain rather than through it. If one suffers chronic pain or is on medication and waits for either of the two to kindly go away before one can write, one does not write and the world is less rich and our lives are less rich. So I incorporate the emotions and the physical feelings of my students into the class as a matter of course, for it's all about enabling writing. We don't often have so much physical distress all in the one room, but it does happen from time to time, and we all adjust.

I'm not teaching my students to over-ride the pain - for pain gives important signals - but how to turn it into good writing or use it as inspiration. We didn't just learn about puns, therefore, we learned about dream sequences and about how pain can change your experience of the world and how to use that transformed experience in character design and character experience.

It's typical of my wonderful Wednesday students that a pain-addled morning should turn into a joyous experience.

(no subject)

I was dealing with a low level migraine all morning (my contribution to the class pain) and I tried to sleep it off, but it turned into a higher level migraine, instead. This is partly hormonal (roll on menopause!) and partly because we're about to get a bit of a weather change. It has made me sensitive to sound and light. The clock sounds ominous and the kitchen light flares. It's tolerable, but only just.

I emailed to cancel my movie-with-friends for tonight (for the others like their movie sound as high as I can tolerate on a normal day and today is the day I would have to put the television down to its second lowest setting to hear without it hurting) and am getting a "We want to see you anyway," message.

Now, I love my friends and I don't get to see them often due to various things (including the doctorate) but I am perimenopausal. This means I get interesting symptoms, and have for nine years. The interesting symptom right now is this kind of migraine. And unless they're ready to not be able to hear because the sound is too quiet, I am going to go all nausea-and-vomity, which is in no-one's interest.

So now I feel guilty. How can I feel guilty for simply being my age and female?


ETA: The guilt is all from my end - my friends have been very nice about it, just to be clear.