Drama class, Day 7

The second session of my drama class got started today, mostly with the same people, so we have a nice rapport already and the one new person fit in right away.  We read “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” tonight.  Not a pretty story, but I have to say that it is ridiculously fun to read drunken dialogue!  Little did you know that I would enjoy being a drunk, 30 year old male professor of biology!  (I played Nick.)   I had to read lines that included the mis-spoken phrase “gangle of geese” and I started laughing so hard at that point that I had to stop for a minute, which got all my classmates laughing too!  We have too much fun in that class!

I’m thrilled to have this class to provide fun and balance in an otherwise busy time of the semester.

First call for NaBloPoMoers

Are you ready for some NaBloPoMo?!! 

I know, I know.  It’s still September.  National Blog Posting Month (aka NaBloPoMo) isn’t until November, but maybe this year, we need to work up to it, save up some blog topics, write posts ahead of time.

NaBloPoMo is the challenge of writing a post every day for the entire month of November.  I find it to be a wonderful exercise in writing as well as self-expression, where I actually hit POST and publish something that might otherwise stay behind the scenes…and it’s always worked out for the better that way.  I don’t remember if it was Henri Nouwen or Parker Palmer…or C.S. Lewis…who said that when we share those things we are most reluctant to share, those things we think nobody will understand (or care about), we actually touch others’ hearts most deeply.  (I think it was Nouwen — anyone happen to know?)

So, will you join me?  Will you NaBloPoMo?  Not ready to sign up for the full thing, then maybe you could invent the half-NaBloPoMo (writing alternate days, perhaps?).  I love, love, love blogs that are updated often (presuming the content is personal and not links or politics!).

I’d love to know what you have to say every day! 

Questions at age 4

I’m guessing that age 4 must be when kids’ brains are ready for a lot of comparative reasoning because I’ve had weekly conversations with my cousin’s boy that revolve around:  which is bigger, which is stronger, which is faster.  The question for today completely cracked me up.  Are you ready for this:

“Which is easier:  making ice cubes or building a house?”

I love this age! 

A watched pot boils eventually

In a typical week, I use my stove once or twice to heat up pasta and/or peas for dinner.  I use two of the burners so infrequently that they smell a lot when I turn them on!  A chef, I am not.  I’d rather do math.  *grins*

This week, thanks to this never-ending cold (still going strong on day 12), I’ve used my stove at least twice a day to boil water to make myself a steam tent.  I tried this in desperation on Monday night, when after days without a good night’s sleep, I would have tried anything.  Much to my amazement, it helped tremendously!  My sinuses had been clogged to the point of causing jaw pain (a new thing for me), and the steam chased the clogs away for long enough so that I could get some deep sleep.

So, this has become my morning and night routine.  Boil the water, make a tent for myself with a towel, steam out those clogged sinuses.  If my stove had feelings, perhaps it would feel like it’s finally being put to good use after years of being virtually ignored!  If it could do math, we’d have a better relationship.  *laughs*

No dancing :-(

My dance class for fall is officially cancelled due to much lower than typical enrollment.

*sobs*

Teaching Thursdays #95

It’s been a crazy week of teaching!  We finished up our first unit, and my students turned in their first projects.  I got their projects graded yesterday and this morning, and I’ll be using some of their projects in a presentation that I’m doing for the rest of the faculty tomorrow (a presentation that I’ll be working on late tonight…).

It’s been a crazy week.  In the franticness of it all, I’ve just been reminding myself to breathe, breathe, breathe.  And, I lost sight of something that is important to me.  I forgot to be reassuring.

We flew through the first unit in my classes this semester.  I taught the unit at a faster pace so that we’d finish it a day earlier than usual (offsetting a weird scheduling goof-up by the administration).  So it’s been quick, and I could tell last week that they are a little freaked out by the pace.

I still planned a full day of review (today) and gave them a bunch of problems to work on.  As I went over the problems, I told them they should expect a couple of these harder problems on the exam and they need to know the formulas.  There were a lot of shoulds and musts and needs in my chatter.  Not once did I say that they will be OK, that we’re all in this together, that if they work slowly and carefully and think through what makes sense, they’ll do just fine.  I forgot to remind them that I’m available all weekend by e-mail if they have questions.

So I left campus with a feeling that I had scared them a little, that my tone wasn’t warm or inviting.  I forgot to be reassuring.

I’ll do better next week.

Randomus Mondayus

Random, randoma, randomi, randomus!

… Still sick.  The creeping crud has made it’s way into my lungs (sigh), so now the real battle begins.

… My dance class was supposed to start today, but they are four people short of getting the class to run.  So they delayed it a week, sent out an e-mail that our old teacher (who I love!) is back, and are hoping that news gets the enrollment up.  It feels like forever since I had a dance class, and I’m eager to get back into it!

… I’ve had dozens of hilarious conversations with my cousin’s four year old lately.  And some math conversations!  Like me saying, “Two and two and two is six!” and him saying with such indignation, “I thought two and two was FOUR!”  And me saying “Two and two IS four!  But two and two AND TWO is six!”

… Watched the Emmy’s last night.  It’s a little weird when I haven’t even heard of some of the shows, much less seen them.

… One of my friends had a preminition of sorts that I’ll marry a guy who has a beard and two daughters.  Okey dokey!

… I feel a bit unsettled lately.  Perhaps the aftermath of my u-turn with work/school.  No really bad unsettled, but just unsettled.

The nose runneth

I kind of figured that my sore throat was just a prelude to some kind of respiratory infection.  And it was.  My nose started running yesterday afternoon and hasn’t stopped since (Quick!  Go catch it!  Before it gets away!).  I’ve used dozens of Kleenex today and spent most of the day in my rocker recliner, watching TV, catching up on blog reading, and resting.

I took some cough medicine mid-afternoon.  I don’t yet have a cough, but this medicine thins the mucus that comes from infection, and I’m hoping that if I thin the mucus early, it will never take hold in my lungs.  When things get in my lungs, then we’ve got the likelihood of bronchitis, which will kick up my asthma and put me at risk for broken ribs (again!!) from coughing.  These are all things that I desperately want to avoid!

This feels like such a strange time of year to be sick.  I usually get colds at the beginning or end of winter.  It’s September!  September is a happy month, full of school supplies and the beginning of autumn leaves!  September is not the month to get sick, but there are at least two yucky bugs going around.  So beware!

Teaching Thursdays #94

On Tuesday, when one of my students came into class, she said, “I have to tell you that I usually dread math, but I have been looking forward to this class all day!”  Hooray!  I was not feeling up to par at all on Tuesday, and she completely made my day.  The whole class, in fact, made my day by asking great questions, talking about math, and teaching each other.

Today, when one of my students came to class, she was eager to ask me, “Professor, are we going to learn about standard deviations today?”  Yes.  “Oh good, because standard deviations really confuse me!”  And that made my day that she was wanting to learn.  When we learned how to compute standard deviations (first by hand, then on the calculator) and the students understood what the numbers were telling us, several of them said, “That’s so cool!”

There is good cheer in that class.  Remarkably so, given that these students are not inherently big fans of math and also given that we’re only in the second week.  But, they come ready to learn and very eager.  And I love every bit of it!

Of sore throats and crazy days

*whispers*  Can you hear me?  I woke up yesterday with a very sore throat, took extra strength Tylenol, gave two lectures, crashed in my rocker recliner when I got home, and now plan to not speak (much) until I have to lecture again tomorrow.  Sore throats are just about the annoyingest minor medical problem that I can think of.

Yesterday, in addition to the sore throat, I was feeling a little overwhelmed.  I am in charge of planning workshops for my teaching colleagues (part of some extra responsibilities I took on this fall), and I scheduled four workshops for the next two weeks.  Now I need to get ready for the workshops so people don’t feel like they are a waste of time.  My students have their first projects due next week, and then their first exam.  I was asked to return to one of my old stats jobs for a couple of days to do additional work for them (thankfully we were able to put that off until Oct 5th).  In the midst of all this, I decided that I should contact somebody about transferring my grad credits, if I think there’s a chance I may want to pursue a different degree.  So, these are busy, crazy days!  All good stuff, all working for people who appreciate my skills and hard work, all steps forward, but still busy…and crazy.

And it would be really nice to have my normal voice back.

I’m just sayin’…