Get out of town

I am so happy to have plans to get out of town tomorrow.  I’ll go see a friend who lives out in the country a little ways north of here.  This has felt like a long week, and as I went about my errands after work today, I felt such a deep sense of joy and relief that I’ll get to step out of my regular life for the day tomorrow.  I love to drive to the country, playing the radio, noticing all the new blooms outside.  It feels like a great place to slow down and find some peace.

Oh, and by the way, Dancing Class #3 on Monday was fabulous, as always.  I am debating which dance class to take over the summer now!  My top choice at the moment is the Hula Dancing class, though a few others caught my eye as well. 

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I won’t be writing a Teaching Thursdays post this week but will do so next week, after the insanity that is spring term has begun!

Nubbin and kidney update

I had my kidney ultrasound first thing this morning.  My little angiomyolipoma (which I call Nubbin) is still hanging around and growing ever-so-slowly.  I’ve always had kidney cysts on these ultrasounds too, but usually there were only one or two.  This time, there were several more kidney cysts, so the radiologist was going to fax my doctor with the results and impressions today, and I’ll see my doc on Friday for a discussion of what’s up with the cysts.

It’s been a really long day, but I’m heading off now to go dancing!

Spring Birth

Look who is living on my balcony at this moment!

These are three robin’s eggs.  (Gorgeous color, yes?  I think that’s my favorite blue.)

I noticed the nest a few days ago — it is resting on top of the light fixture on my balcony, pretty well protected from the elements (and high enough so that, even with a step stool, I couldn’t see into the nest so had to just point my camera in there and hope for the best!).  Mama bird was not at all happy with me, but I took the photo quickly and told her I wasn’t going to disturb them.  I’ll leave them alone now until they hatch.  From the looks of it, it should be soon!  It’s so exciting to have life on my balcony!

Lazy Days and Saturdays

Pouring forth oodles of randomness…

…As I contemplated what to do with my day off yesterday, I thought about driving to South Bend to visit Notre Dame Univ (I’m fascinated with that place), taking the train to Chicago, driving up to Frankenmuth, driving to Lake Michigan.  I so wanted to get out of town!  But, I stayed home instead and had a lazy day — started reading a book (“Residents” by David Duncan), wrote some e-mails, ordered paint for my car, and danced.  I tried to choreograph line dances to two of my favorite songs!  It was a good at-home day.

…I am skipping town next Thursday.

…I dreamed last night that Tom Colicchio (the head judge on Top Chef) was angry with me for not telling him that I’m going to grad school.  And, he went on, “You didn’t even tell your husband!”  I said, “My husband??”  Apparently, I have a husband who lives in Lansing and looks a lot like Matt from “13 Going on 30″ (which was on TV last night).  So, I invited my husband to come see me!

…I have really weird dreams!

…I will have an ultrasound on Monday to check on the little Nubbin (technically, an angiomyolipoma) in my kidney.  Hopefully it’s still a tiny thing and we can just continue to watch it.

…Speaking of Monday, the Weather Channel says we might get snow on Monday.  I just knew winter wasn’t over yet.

Teaching Thursdays #76

So, I have eleven semesters of teaching under my belt now, and one more to go before I return to life as a student for awhile.  I had two really good classes during this past semester.

Class #1 had really good attendance throughout the semester (a rarity for an evening class), and they seemed to gel really well as a class, with everyone willing to help those who were struggling.  I had a couple of students in that class who had a rough start to the semester grade-wise and gained so much confidence as we went on that they ended up with pretty good grades.  I love to see that happen!  Those students are often my greatest joy because I get to see them come so far.

Class #2 brought me a lot of laughs with our pre-class discussions about TV, grad school, and life in general.  They were also a really caring group and offered to do bad things to the phlebotomist who bruised my arm so badly last weekend!  This group didn’t shine for good attendance, but they did stand out as one of my most cheerful and cooperative classes I’ve ever had.  I just loved how content that class felt every day.

So, it was a good winter!  In a couple of weeks, I will begin my 12th semester of teaching and stand before my 20th class of students.  I can’t wait!

Another semester finished

My students took their final exams this evening, and I got all 70 exams graded afterward and tabulated final grades, got those posted on the system, and e-mailed every student who wanted to know their exam score and final grade.  I told my students that they’d get the e-mails by midnight, and I finished up with seven minutes to spare.  Phew!

Now, if I could just sleep the next two days instead of working long days at my other job, I’d be all set.  I do have this Friday off, and as of now, I have NO PLANS!  A very strange phenomenon indeed.  What should I do?  Go to the zoo, sail the ocean blue, play a kazoo?

Dance Class, Day 2

My dance class is just a few minute’s drive from my apartment, so I only hear one song on the radio on the way there.  And guess which song was playing when I turned on the car to head to class this evening?  “I hope you dance.”  How perfect!

We had a good second class.  We learned two more dances, plus repeated all our dances (three of them) from last week.  When the class time was officially over, the instructor said, “We’re out of time.  I’m going to turn on the Cupid Shuffle music for anyone who wants to stay and dance one more time.”  And guess what.  Every person stayed!  I thought that was so neat.  And I got a compliment on my dancing from one of the five guys in the class.  He’s about 80 years old (the oldest of our guy quintet), and I thought that was very sweet of him!

Who needs their elbow anyway?

I am supposed to have blood work done at least quarterly (more often if I’m having trouble), but it’s been about 5 months now since I had my routine tests done, and with several doctor visits looming ahead, I couldn’t put it off any longer.  The docs like to know what’s going on before I see them.  So, I went this morning.  (Our lab is conveniently open on Saturday mornings!  Yay!)

Blood draws are always hard because my veins are tiny and uncooperative, plus with a tendency toward dehydration and a bleeding disorder…well, you get the picture.  But the tech got a working vein on the first poke this time.  It seemed that she wiggled the needle around a little bit more than she should have, but I didn’t think much of it.  Afterward, I did a few errands and noticed that my arm was hurting like crazy and the bandaging seemed to be getting tighter and tighter.  When I got home, I took the bandaging off and realized that my elbow is swollen to roughly the size of Rhode Island!  Well, OK, it’s not that bad, but it’s impressively different in size from my other elbow with a large knot right over the poked area and bad bruising.  My best guess is that all the needle wiggling poked through the other side of a vein, and I then bled into my elbow.  (Today is a very bleedy day for me anyway, which is part of why I wanted to get my counts checked today but I suppose the downside of that is that I’d have bleeding complications from the blood draw!)

Never a dull moment, I tell ya.

Two prayer requests

Two prayer requests on this Saturday morning…

A woman named Janet from the NIH/HPS e-mail group that I participate in is waiting for a lung transplant.  She’s first on the list and actually got The Call on Monday for a pair of lungs that turned out to not be good enough for transplant, so she’s still waiting.

A tiny baby boy named Luc was born on Monday, weighing in at 2 pounds, 7 ounces.  He’s the nephew of a friend of mine.  He will be in the NICU for several weeks.

Teaching Thursdays #75

I suppose every teacher has a special connection to their very first classes.  I sure do.  And some of those students who I taught in my first year of teaching — who were freshmen or sophomores at the time — will walk at commencement in ten days.  I can’t believe it.

My babies are graduating!

I almost always have some seniors in my classes too, who graduate right after they finish my class.  I have a special connection with them too, knowing that I’m getting them at the end of their education and I get to put one last spark of math possibility into their brains.  We celebrate their graduations with lots of cheers in class.

But, those kids who were just starting when I was just starting are a special bunch to me.  We’ve all grown a lot in the last four years.  And we all have new adventures ahead.