Anxiety
"Sex and gender are two separate entities. Sex is a biological, dictated by chromosomes and genetics. Gender is a cultural construct. The two-gender system is actually fairly recent, and many cultures have more than just male and female."
A student raised his hand, "Dr. Sigrid, what about the-"
"This is an anthropology class, not a theology of you have a Bible question Dr. Jameson is down the hallway."
The student blinked and lowered his hand. Dick, one of Sigrid's graduate students, grinned from his spot in the corner. His government name was Richard, but he had gone by Dick for so long that he preferred it now. Sigrid didn't let themselves get thrown off when. They had a planned lecture, and he really appreciated it. They continued with their lecture, answering questions occasionally before their time was up and the class was dismissed.
"Great lecture as usual, doc," Dick started, "how'd you know he was going to try and make it a religious debate?" He leaned his hip against the table at the front of the room while Sigrid packed their notes.
"When you've been doing this as long as I have, you know the look. Speaking of looks I like the blue." They smiled, throwing their satchel bag over their head and crossing their shoulder.
"Oh, thanks. My girlfriend wanted to test a new washable dye and since my hair was already bleached, we figured why not go for it. Plus, I was planning to do a blue thing this week with my shirts anyway."
Dick had a collection of Hawaiian floral shirts, multiple of every color, that he would match his hair to. The pastel blue he had gone with this week was a stark contrast against his dark skin. It reminded them of someone, but they couldn't quite put their finger on it.
"Oh, I uh had a question, me and the girls were wondering if we could move," they started walking down the hall, "the table in the back of the lab out to have more room for floor-to-ceiling shelving…" He paused, "Also, if we could order floor-to-ceiling shelving."
"Sure, I don't see why not just let me go over the budget. Do you think you, Jerry, and Faham could write it up as a proposal so I can get it through the bureaucratic system?"
"Absopositlutely." He gave them two thumbs up.
Sigrid smiled; Dick ran off to his next class soon after that. They started tapping their fingers against their thigh in a soothing pattern, pinky, middle thumb, pinky middle thumb. Their index finger touched their thigh, and they grimaced. Wrong pattern. They weren't sure why it bothered them when students tried to tie everything back to a Christian religious perspective. They had dealt with similar for years.
Pinky middle thumb.
'Incoming text message from: Dr. Flynn.'
Hey Sigrid, Mel said a student was going around complaining about you not letting them speak their truth about religion. Just a heads up. I don't think the kiddo knows you're the chair so please tell us what happens when he goes to you to complain about you.
That would explain the weird feeling. They sighed. Time to put together a complaint form as a precaution.
Thanks, Archie, I know the student. Wow, took them 5 minutes. I'm gonna call the head of his department so he has an heads-up on what's going on. (Smile emoticon).
They opened the door to their office and collapsed into the overstuffed chair they'd replaced the office chair with years ago.
Pinky middle thumb.
They grabbed their pant legs snd hosted their left leg onto the desk, and leaned further into the stuffing.
"It's fine. Everything's fine. Os, Anna, Ryder… Odin? Loki? Tyr? Someone? Give me the strength and wisdom to guide this incident that I didn't think would be an incident because I was just trying to teach."