Teaching Thursdays #65

Several years ago, when I was still an undergrad (way back in the 20th century…), I found out that one of my professors lived behind my parents!  I was so surprised!  And at least some part of my surprise came from the fact that it had never, ever occurred to me that she lived anywhere.  This was my professor, and so therefore, she lives in her office and in a total math bubble, right?  Well, not so much.  *laughs*  It turned out that this professor lived behind my parents, and had previously lived two doors down from us at our old house too.  How weird!  And she cooks and dances and has dogs and a kid who would read books while sitting in a tree in their front yard.  In other words, she had a regular life.  Who woulda thunk it?

That experience made me very aware that my own students might not always remember that I, too, have a life outside of school and math.  And though I’m careful not to share a lot of details of my life with my students, I do say things from time to time that bring my humanness out.  Last semester, one of my students said something like, “I bet you hate us now” after an exam with low scores, and I said, “Of course not!  I love you guys.  I e-mail my Mom about you guys and what a great class you are!”  (Which is true!)  And they kind of laughed, and you could see some of them processing that, oh my gosh, the professor has a MOM!

We had one of these Human moments in class this Tuesday.  The lecture went quite smoothly and quicker than I expected, and the students finished their daily worksheet fast as well.  So we were getting out of class about 10 minutes early.  I looked at my watch and said, “Hooray, I’ll be home in time to watch the new episode of ‘House’!”  And the students started giggling and said, “You watch that show too!”  Yes, indeed, dear students, I have a television and I know how to use it.  And my goodness, I do love “House”!

So here’s to the humanness in every teacher that comes out every once in a while and surprises their students!

Weird Wednesday

I’ve had a really weird day today.

I got to work this morning, and my computer would not work.  It rebooted itself twice (without any commands from me), wouldn’t open e-mail, wouldn’t do anything with anything related to Windows.  It told me that I had a “contextless login” (try to say that three times fast — I couldn’t even say it once when I tried to tell my boss and the computer people what was going on).  So I was bounced around to other people’s work stations but couldn’t do a lot of my work, what with my files actually being on my computer and not on the server.  It’s a good thing that I worked my tail off yesterday getting the last of the data ready for our grant report.  (Side note:  The report has been submitted!  I am so happy it’s done!!)

I got home from work (on the bus) just before 2 p.m. and had a rare Wednesday afternoon free of any commitments, so I decided to get a ton of errands done despite the arctic weather.  I tried to get in my car, and the car doors were frozen shut.  (I drove home in hard rain last night and then the temperature dropped 40+ degrees overnight, thus the frozen doors.)  I pulled and pulled on the driver’s side door, tried the passenger side door, no luck.  I went inside and looked around my apartment for anything that would help but couldn’t find anything.  (It did occur to me at this point that it was a very good thing I didn’t actually have to be anywhere!)  I went back outside and mustered all the strength I could, and the door came open.  Ha!  I win!  While I was out doing errands though, the passenger side door, which seemed to have not budged at all, had apparently unlatched in the pulling process, and it kind of came open while I was driving.  (My clue was that all of sudden, I could hear things outside as though I was outside…good clue, eh?)  Fortunately, I was able to pull over into a dental office and deal with that.

Weird day, yes?

The rest of my outing was fine though.  And I was especially delighted to get to a store to look at baby things, and I now have something adorably pink hanging in my house that will be shipped off to baby Claire on the west coast forthwith.

And tomorrow is another day.

Baby watch

I received word yesterday that one of my nearly lifelong friends had a baby girl named Claire!  This is baby #3 and the first girl for the family.  I can’t wait to get to the store and to buy some pink!  I love to shop for babies — any babies really (got one?) — but after years and years of boys, it is nice to sometimes get to look at things with ruffles and ribbons now!

I’m also eager to read about baby news from a couple of bloggers who I read but don’t know in real life.  It is fun to be on a Baby Watch again!

Little Dishwasher

My cousin’s little boy (age two and a half) loves water and will wash his hands every three minutes if you let him!  So when I was babysitting for him today at my apartment and he wanted to play with the water, I said, “If you want to play in the sink, you should wash the dishes!”  Much to my surprise, he was very excited about this — I soon figured out that it was because washing the dishes means not only water but bubbles!  He stood on a stool and washed every dish he could find, and we worked together to get them rinsed.  (By summer, he’ll probably be tall enough to reach the faucet if he’s on the step stool!)  After we ate lunch, we had obviously created more dishes, and he ran into my kitchen and said, “Wash the dishes!!”  This child — this broccoli-loving, dancing, dishwashing child — is full of surprises!

Three things I learned this week

1)  You shouldn’t start reading a good book (“Strong at the Broken Places”) when you have a bunch of grading that needs to be done and your busiest social weekend of the season coming up!

2)  When you’re very proud of yourself for being ahead of schedule in getting a huge report done, you will find a thousand errors that need to be fixed when you don’t really have time anymore to fix all of them.

3)  If you’re trying to get a sense for how cold it is outside, asking someone who grew up in northern Minnesota is not a good plan.  She thinks a wind chill of one degree is “not that bad” whereas I think 20 degrees is “not that bad” but one degree is darn cold.

Teaching Thursdays #64

This early in the semester, I don’t know most of my students well enough yet to read their signals, so I’m often finding myself trying to guess what’s up with them.  Are those looks because this is too easy and I’m going too slow, or are they totally lost?  Are they enjoying class?  What’s up?!  You just don’t know until you stand in front of a group of your own students how tense their faces can look and how hard it is to gauge what’s going on in their minds. 

So, I particularly appreciate when I have some students, or even just one, who give me clear feedback.  This semester, that student in one of my classes is a young man who sits way in the back corner but who is always, always paying attention and making eye contact with me.  He nods when I ask if things are making sense (or sometimes, I think, just to encourage me!) and gives me a thumbs up if he got a right answer on an example problem.  I am so appreciative of the clarity of his non-verbals!  And math isn’t his thing — he told me this even before the semester started — so he’s a good litmus test for whether I’m making any sense at all.  This student told me very early this semester how much he appreciates my style of teaching, and I need to tell him how much I appreciate his style of being a student!  It’s a huge help to me, that’s for sure.

If you snoop, you will find

Psssttt.  I did some snooping around and found out that the meeting to decide who to offer admission to for the grad program is on February 7th.  So, if y’all could put some good vibes into the universe that day, perhaps whispering, “Pick Sandy” or “If you admit her, she will come” (like the voice in “Field of Dreams”!), that would be super cool.  I can picture them all sitting around a table, hearing voices, and saying to each other, “Hmmm, that Sandy, it just feels like her name is in the air today!”

That happens.  Right?  *giggles*

Feeling like a patient

My body is not getting any breaks lately.  I was having some significant (worse than usual) bleeding issues between Christmas and New Years, which settled down just in time for me to get the nasty stomach bug.  The stomach bug messed up my hydration disorder worse than it’s been for many years, and I was just feeling like I was very nearly normal this past Thursday (and said so to a friend who kindly inquired how I was doing), and then Friday started another round of worse than usual bleeding!  So, this is one of those months where I definitely cannot forget that I have medical issues.

For me, one of the most frustrating parts of all of this is having to decide nearly every day lately whether I need medical attention.  Am I OK enough to just handle things on my own?  (I’m not always sure that I’m a good judge of that, and my doctors get really frustrated when I let things go on without calling them…)  Do I need increased meds, blood work, IV, a medical evaluation?  Having to think about all of that every day makes all this medical stuff much more front burner than it usually is.  And having it go on for weeks is just the pits.

So, I’m feeling very much like a patient these days.

Back to Books

I am particularly excited to read two new books, one that was just published and one that will be published in one month.

The first is “Strong at the Broken Places” by Richard Cohen.  Cohen has MS and writes about five real people who live with chronic illness.  This is a rare topic to be covered in books or even in articles.  People are drawn to stories about very large battles against things that are curable, but stories of people who live fairly regular lives despite daily health challenges are not often told.  I saw Cohen interviewed the other day, and he said the same thing and that he wanted to give people with chronic illness a voice.  I love the subtitle of the book too.  It is “Voices of Illness, Chorus of Hope.”  Yes indeed.

The second book (to be published Feb 19th) is also a medical story but it happens to be written by someone I know.  My old friend Rob, who I met online in the mid-90s and met in person a few times, writes about his daughter who has a very rare disorder called congenital bilateral perisylvian syndrome.  He has always been someone who writes with such openness and honesty that just draws you right in.  I am so excited that his book will be published.  It is called “Schuyler’s Monster.”

Teaching Thursdays #63

So I’m back to a split work schedule with a research job and teaching just two classes.  It feels great to be back on this kind of schedule, and I have some breathing room in my weekends again.  Aaaaahhhhh!

The funny thing is that this is the first time that my teaching schedule is two courses I’ve taught before — and I’ve actually taught both very recently, so my lesson plans are polished and I have very little to do in the way of prep.  Last week, I glanced through my lectures 15 minutes before each class and things went fine.  It’s freaking me out a little bit how little work I’m doing for teaching so far this semester!  Of course, as our department head always reminds me, just wait until I have to grade stuff — and that day will come next week when I collect projects and give exams!  But for now, in this week 2 of a long semester, I am able to relax and enjoy things.  And when it’s week 10 and I’m very crabby, remind me that I didn’t start the semester that way.  *giggles*