I've been back in the office for a couple of weeks, and I love it! But we get to do what we want, schedule-wise, everyone has an office they can shut the door on, and everyone is vaccinated and wearing masks.

Oh, good reminder to bring my noise canceling headphones in with me! Just in case I need them, I don’t really know what to expect

I’m having night before the first day of school flashbacks

I survived a day at the office! There was almost nobody there, including nobody from my division, despte the fact that there's supposed to be one clinical person there at all times, so I don't know what's up with that. But I'm wrung out and undelighted by all of it.

That is good to hear, JZ. We went back officially in August. There was all this back and forth and schedules and planning and such, but of course it doesn't REALLY effect faculty, they can do what they want within reason (they are clinical faculty, so they are hired at the pleasure of the Dean yearly, rather than being tenured).

When Omicron hit and we cancelled classes again, I think everyone has just noped out and is just doing whatever they and their supervisor wants or will tolerate. (The Dean clearly wants everyone there at all times). The secretaries who "had" to be in are just working from home again. I have been working from home again as needed to log on to 8 am meetings. I was planning on going in tomorrow, but frankly I have been responding to those Facebook posts during trying to provide IT support (note I am not IT) to students in the online program I work on who do not get Box AT ALL. But also, they had a delay getting started because IT just f'ed up their Box accounts. They are collaborating with a partner and keep overwriting the other's work and wanting me to "merge" it somehow. I want to sleep in tomorrow because none of them have followed the explicit template (they deleted my placeholders where you could just click a plus sign to add your video and are trying so many workarounds!), instructions and instructional videos I made and are all angry because technology doesn't work. I want to be like- no- you didn't read. Anyway, I may not go in tomorrow either.

Ugh, I'm agitated from trying to absorb all the news on Ukraine.

But here's what I can summarize:

We're in a race between two elements now, with a third element as the wild card. And a fourth.

1. Russia anticipated taking Lyiv quickly, deposing Zelansky and setting up a puppet government. They didn't want to raze the city as they did in Chechnya or Syria. That allowed Ukraine to prop itself up, have people leave the country, mount a resistance and allow NATO, US and EU to rally their resources.

But now Russia is ramping up their attack and shelling civilians structures. Though they've had early setbacks, Russia has a lot of firepower left and can level entire cities without nuclear attack.

The question is: are they willing to destroy Lyiv to subjugate Ukraine. It would make them an international pariah for much longer than the current sanctions.

2. The U.S. and EU and other allies have rallied very quickly to impose unprecedented financial sanctions, going well beyond what anybody thought they could do. They are targeting the Russian Central Bank, freezing assets internationally, and going specifically at the oligarchs who support Putin. It has just been reported that the Western allies are ready to seize Russian assets instead of just freezing them. Something which none of the oligarchs anticipated. I mean, even Switzerland is freezing accounts, and they had no trouble funding Nazis.

So it's kind of a race between Russia trying to subjugate the Ukraine (with how much of Lyiv they're willing to destroy) and how much international pressure the West can apply (which so far is unified and unprecedented in its scope) to get Putin and the people who support him to change their calculus.

Wild card element #3 is that Russia is threatening to use nuclear power, and if cornered Putin will certainly be willing to fire off a nuclear warhead shell in some lesser populated part of Ukraine as a show of force.

Wild card element #4: will NATO and Western allies allow Russia unchecked airpower over Ukraine if they're using planes to level the city. It NATO challenges Russia over the skies, then we're in a whole other realm of nuclear brinksmanship. But I think NATO may have to, or simply watch as Russia razes Lyiv to the ground.

tl;dr: The longer Ukraine can stall the invasion the more pressure it puts on Russia to back down. Also, Putin is a total fucknut who will use nuclear weapons. Although it is more likely to be a smaller show of force once you unleash that element everything becomes very chaotic and impossible to predict any escalation.

I ordered noise-cancelling headphones yesterday. Should arrive soon.

I don't know about the cats, tuxedo or otherwise, but one unit has taken in a puppy that they say will warn them if a stranger comes near. They named him Rambo.

Guys are on my roof fixing a flat section leak, and the dog is being incredibly chill about it all. Huh. Grateful that my family from my late husband (35 years ago!) still love me and got a crew out right away when I told them I had an inspection on Thursday. In odd melancholia, I have seldom seen them over the decades because the family has very strong genetics and his four siblings could have been twins. When I do see them my mind goes to a 'this is what Steve would have looked like in his 60s if he had lived past his 30s place. It still stabs my heart. I regret that I didn't stay as close to them as I would have otherwise. Blah.

SIL is coming this afternoon to help me pack. So much to pack. I have to find smaller containers for the books. We have these big bins that would need a crane if I filled them with books.

tl;dr: The longer Ukraine can stall the invasion the more pressure it puts on Russia to back down.

Russia is losing the public opinion campaign so badly. Ukraine is getting levels of support from all kinds of surprising places, like the Germans and Swiss stepping up more than expected. Zelenskyy looks like a big dang macho hero, while Putin looks really off with the bowling alley length tables. His inner circle, people, and troops don't want this war. Alas, none of this is going to change the level of destruction and loss of life to come. I hope some real positive turn happens.

Russia is losing the public opinion campaign so badly.

What scares me is the possibility that the global public opinion campaign doesn't much matter inside Russia. I just listened to last weekend's This American Life, a quick audio primer on Putin's entire history, and one of the segments was by a US journalist who'd lived in Moscow as an exchange student in the early 90s and has remained very close to his host mom, who's now in her 60s. They talked about Putin generally, and about the invasion of Ukraine, and then he turned to opinion polling and how to tease out just how exaggerated his exaggerated approval ratings are vs. how large a grain of truth there is in them.

And it was really alarming. She *loves* Putin, unreservedly adores everything about him, and steadfastly disbelieves everything anyone in the Western press has to say about him, even knowing her beloved "American son" is part of the Western press. They're all liars running elaborate anti-Russia propaganda campaigns, invading Ukraine was absolutely the right call, Ukraine had definitely been planning to murder people in the separatist states, Zelenskyy is a clown and Biden is a moron and her Volodya (some Russian mystics had foreseen that a man named Volodya would arise one day as Russia's savior) is always the smartest guy in the room.

I know there have been protests and marches by Russian citizens who don't want this to happen, but that interview just scared the shit out of me. The protestors, brave and amazing as they are, are probably still outnumbered by people who think everything he's doing is just great. Personally decent, kind, non-villainous humans, but excited and happy for him.

Ugh. I really, deeply hope that TAL segment was wrong, or at least was underestimating the quiet opposition to Putin.