Sticky Roll Notes, sticky little post-it style reminders. Oh you long and short lists, to-do, to-do, how is there still so much to do. I can’t go out so I’m limited but I have to plan and make and work online with my newly purchased blue-light blocking glasses on. Blocking the light feels so wrong. I could get lost along the way in the dark. But, the to-do sticky note will bring me back. Back to the world where my students are waiting with square eyes for guidance; some excited to get started, others hiding, video off, muted as they attempt to ‘be present’ from below their duvet. And then tutorial after tutorial pass before the ache of my headphones pulses through my brain and a glass of squash is all I need. Did I write it on my to-do list? No. Better put it on there now: Get. A. Drink. Tick. I didn’t list biscuit eating either but then that would make those calories real. Not for now.
Back to the list; help someone, do something amazing, make someone’s day; all seem rather ambitious and relentlessly ‘worthy’. Next item, have a break, oh good. Do I count for ‘helping someone’? Maybe I am helping myself, to another episode on Netflix. Carefully, I had chosen an American soap with so many seasons it would take me a while to get through. I remember saying I would watch Games of Thrones when I broke a limb – some kind of medicinal prize, or acknowledgement that I was so far behind, only being bedridden would allow me the space to get up to speed. But now… It is tempting. I digress – the break isn’t until the end of the day but my eyes have scanned it hungrily. Plan a lesson (later), make a banana bread before the bananas melt (later), take the rubbish out (maybe never), feed the cat (I better had), oh my god I didn’t take my medication. It wasn’t on the to-do list. Tomorrow’s to-do list must start with PILLS. I feel the clock is ticking. Am I on target? Another lesson on the horizon and this one will be a cracker. Ten minutes of ‘here’s how’ then off they go, my wild geese, get cracking. I’ll send you the link to the examples don’t worry. Here’s one I made ….. wait, did I record that? No. Set it as a task to watch later. Add it to the to-do list. Above or below watering the scented geraniums? Above of course. Panic sets in. The geraniums really need a drink. I’m smiling at the students but they are all invisible. I can only see my own silly face smiling back at me. Wait, did I brush my teeth today. Perhaps not. Definitely not. Smile with lips shut, Miss. The lesson finishes to a beautiful chorus of male and female voices thanking me by unmuting for a split second, observing virtual etiquette they pause before leaping in. “Goodbye all!” she chirrups, too high pitched like a mad bird. Record a video, then water the geraniums. What about the loo, why didn’t I factor in needing the loo. Video, loo, geraniums. The list becomes harder to read with each correction.
I’ve done a thing, and another thing, and that thing. But I feel I have spent the whole day treading water.
Help someone – me, another episode on Netflix, self-soothing, self-care.
Do something amazing – hmmmm…….. not finishing the biscuits? That’s self-control checked too. Write it on, check it off.
Make someone’s day – I fed the cat, does that count? I mean, who makes the rules around here.
It is her. I feel like she knows that I will fail and mocks my attempt to be organised. She looks back at me smirking as I tick off less than half the jobs for today. She dusts off her bright orange edges, pointedly rattling the words that escaped onto the page behind, and snorts derisively as I start my post-it for tomorrow: Geraniums, Banana Bread, Rubbish.
The Imaginarium 