Addendum.

In retrospect, it's interesting, too, how people outside my doctoral program responded to me, in academic forums. Like, back when I taught at the art school, one cool long-time staffer there with a Ph.D. who I was serving with on a committee told me privately, "You don't belong here, you belong at a top-tier research school." (That was a month or two before a tenured department chair there cooked up a paper trail on the basis of a handful of bad student evals from one class in order to jettison me from all my teaching; as another long-time faculty member there commented, "You intimidate him," a comment resonant with what a sympathetic writing program administrator later told me out of the blue right when I was making moves to severe myself from all academic employment, "The problem that you have is that you just shouldn't talk, if you say something, it will cause problems," which I took to mean that just by existing and possessing competency I risked jealousy and would have people go after me, and so I just should wall myself off and minimize myself and maximally strip down all interactions with other professors to some bland necessary core, which wasn't the case with most people operating in positions like mine... In other words, I triggered insecurity, and because of my economic and professional vulnerability, people would just go after me in absolutely insane ways, to blow me out of the water.) Too, after my one well-received research presentation at a regional conference last fall, on a topic that wasn't even the focus of my doctorate, two (younger) (tenured) profs asked me why I wasn't a professor. I told one of them who seemed nice that I had 3 wasted years in my program due to severe bullying and faculty were seeking to flunk me out with a full dissertation, to the point where I was keeping correspondence off of university servers in case I needed a lawyer like an academic mentor said might be necessary, and they were just simply aghast, that something like that could have happened to me. That same prof also just couldn't believe that a Dean would have crazy insane angry outbursts at people in student, staff, and faculty positions, with no repercussions at all, even when reported. That just doesn't reflect well on my Ph.D. program at all, when you just directly tell people about the faculty and administrative misconduct that has been there in recent years.

"Big fish in a small pond."

It's very, very interesting to see how people react to me here in the college town that I now live in, compared to the city where I used to live. Like, I stopped through the local state rep's office to see about liaise-ing with them over some potential legislation supported by the one civic group that I'm involved in, and they were so open and receptive to ideas and to contributions and to energy, in a way totally unlike the city, where the officials wouldn't necessarily give you the time of day at all, even when you'd expect them to. Similarly, when I contacted several subject specialist university librarians with some suggestions for filling in some odd gaps in their collections, I got responses like right away, and within an hour they said they'd be ordering all 4 of my suggestions. It's like I automatically command respect and people take me seriously, in a way that just didn't happen when I was in the city, even though I'm new and they're probably only going off of first impressions, without even having a sense of me and my track record of accomplishments, which you'd think would make people take me even more seriously. "Big fish in a small pond."

A feat of environmentally-conscious cooking, with self-cooking no-boil lasagna noodles.

Before she moved, my one assisted living client with disabilities's (lesbian) sister gave me some leftover food from her pantry if I could use it, including two boxes of self-cooking no-boil lasagna noodles that you could just straightaway layer into lasagnas before you baked them, which I took, even though I never make lasagna. But, the other week I made up some lasagna soup - it's a trend the past few years, where people make up a tomato soup with ground beef and onion and green pepper and flavor it with (Italian) spices like oregano and whatnot - and instead of serving it over rice always, sometimes I'd break those noodles and put them in the soup that I'd heat up, and they'd be just like lasagna noodles in lasagna, except they'd be in my lasagna soup. And, I finally used up all of them, after they'd been in my cupboard for almost a year.

Resthome connections.

The other day the one resthome resident who's a retired school nurse emailed me and said that my one (Thai) coworker told her that she still pictures us walking down the one hallway together in the late afternoon, which we did together so regularly for a span of almost several years. I also got a big envelope in the mail, with not only the passed-on fun wordlist printouts that she had saved for me, but also some recent newsletters with interesting resident history tidbits, that my one (older) (white) (gay) coworker had tucked in there. "Don't the people who live here have the most interesting stories?", he would always be like.

Healthcare licensing class hospital tour:

On our first day at the hospital for the one healthcare licensing class that I'm taking, one of our last tour stops was the cafeteria, and the one (well-groomed) (younger middle-aged) (white) lady who was our tourguide led us through it, though she said that sometimes offerings were limited because of staffing problems right now. "This looks pretty good," I was like, to a few of my classmates. "Yeah," said the one (early 20s) (short) (skinny) (open-faced) (light-skinned black) girl. "I love cafteria food." The, she was like, I'm weird like that." "So how is Taco Tuesday?", I was like, to the hospital lady leading us around. "I'll tell you the truth," she was like, "I've had better, but I still eat here all the time." She also said that Panda Express brings in food on different days and pointed out the list of when that happens, which was taped to the top of an empty hot table's glass sneezeguard, and when she did that, there was just this ripple of excitement among my group.

Healthcare licensing class offer:

At our first day at the hospital for that portion of our healthcare licensing class, the (older) (slightly crazy) (black lady) instructor reminded us all that they had cameras everywhere, including in the "grab and go" part of the cafeteria where you can get stuff and pay by debit card, and that we should never ever just take something there and leave without paying. "I get it, that you're between paychecks and you're hungry," she was like. "If that happens, come talk to me." And, she said that that happened a few years ago and a student got kicked out of the program, though eventually they got them back in and they graduated.

Healthcare licensing class rebuke:

A few weeks ago in my one healthcare licensing class during break, the one (older) (slightly crazy) (black lady) instructor called me aside to talk to me. "I have to mention grooming," she was like, referencing the student code of conduct that discusses no dyed hair, wearing deodorant, etc. As it turns out, the top of my uniform was noticeably crumpled from sliding around in my backpack on the way to class (I wear a different set of clothes on the bus, to reduce bringing potential infection into the classroom like I would if I wore my uniform on the bus and sat on the seats and whatnot and then came into the classroom and sat on the seats there; I've done the same thing throughout the entire pandemic, when traveling on public transportation to my jobs with the elderly and disabled). And, she said it shouldn't be a problem, since the uniforms come out nicely from the drier, so it shouldn't be happening. But, I didn't realize quite what had happened at first, though, since I was caught off guard, so I told her that I had had my uniform in the drier last night but fell asleep and it was crumpled when I got up in the morning with no time to iron it, and that was just random, so it wouldn't happen again.