NaBloPoMo Cometh

National Blog Posting Month begins on Sunday!  Eeeeeeeeeek!

Are you ready?  Am I ready?  I am decidedly unready, but I will pull up my bootstraps and suck it up and do this thing.  I am blogger, hear me roar!

*giggles*

Teaching Thursdays #100

This is my 100th Teaching Thursdays post!  How did that happen?! 

And it seems an odd week to celebrate this milestone, given that I coughed through class on Tuesday (only giving a very short — five minute! — lecture) and had to cancel class today.  I also didn’t get my students’ exams graded and had to tell them, no, they aren’t getting their scores yet on Tuesday (their disappointment was palpable — first time ever that I haven’t gotten stuff graded right away).

So, this is not a celebratory, YAY TEACHING kind of week!  This is a “darn virus, keeping me from doing my job well (or at all!)” kind of week.

But, my students were very sympathetic on Tuesday.  Several asked if I was really OK.  One said she just wishes that I could go to sleep and not have to lecture!  (Me too!)  And I sent out the e-mail about cancelling class only 20 minutes ago and have already had four e-mail responses from the students, all telling me to rest and get well soon.

So, we’ll get on with the business of math next week.  I’ll re-arrange this unit a little bit to accommodate the missed day, and I think the new agenda may work out even better than the previous plan.  So, we’ll do some YAY TEACHING next week.

No drama tonight

I am missing my drama class tonight.  Sigh.  This is Day 8 of flu symptoms, though at this point, it’s actually veering into more post-flu symptoms as I think it’s my asthma being fired up again that is becoming the bigger problem right now.

I haven’t had influenza since 1999, and it’s easy to forget that flu is way worse than a cold.  It really flattens you for days at a time.  In 1999, I had influenza, then post-flu bronchitis (and my first broken rib) and was quite sick for the better part of two weeks.  I barely got though final exams, and in fact, had to leave one exam early.

But it’s been almost 10 years since then.  So when the doc said on Thursday that I should stay home until Monday, I was like, okay, a few days of this and I’ll be fine.  And now we’re heading into another Thursday, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to lecture tomorrow.  And I’m wondering if I’ll get to sing all the Saints songs at church on Sunday.

With any luck, given that I’ve now had a bad sinus infection and some type of flu this fall, I will have a healthier (at least less viral oriented!) winter!  That would be very nice.

Sick

Just a note to say that I’m still sick.  Some type of flu.  Fever is down, but my lungs are still full of crud.  So, I cough, cough, cough, and listen to my lungs gurgle.  It’s been a long few days.

Teaching Thursdays #99

This is my 14th semester of teaching, and yesterday was only the fifth time that I wasn’t able to be there for class.  Pretty good for a teacher with medical issues!

My colleagues sometimes tease me about how much I work ahead on things for teaching.  I tend to copy exams 3 to 7 days ahead of time, whereas my colleagues are often copying exams the morning of.  But this was the second time that I missed an exam day, and since the exams were ready to go (and thankfully in an unlocked drawer in my office), it was easy for our dept head to find someone to proctor the exams and things were all set.  So, there’s a good reason that I do this ahead of time!

I e-mailed my students and told them someone else would proctor the test.  I felt bad that I wouldn’t be there, that I wouldn’t hear them laugh when I said, “Good luck and have fun!” when I handed out all the exams.  I hope things went well.

Drama class, Day 10

I am sick again *cough, cough* and considered not going to my drama class, especially when I realized I was losing my voice!  Can’t read a play very well if you can’t speak!  But I went, and I’m so glad I did.

We read “Doubt” today.  *insert endless smile here!*

I am in love with “Doubt” — it is challenging subject matter but in really interesting ways, and the story is very tightly woven and the characters all have flaws and layers.  I was excited to play two roles in the play (we were short a person today).  I got to be Sister James (the younger nun) and Mrs. Muller (whose son is central to the story with the priest).  Excellent parts, and just such a treat to read the play.

I LOVE DRAMA!

The G Word

I started grading my students’ mid-term projects at 5 p.m. last Thursday.  And I just finished grading them at about 9:30 tonight.  *falls over*

That’s… *counting* …TOO MANY days of grading papers!

Of course, I did have two (!) birthday dinners in between there, saw a play, went to church, had meetings, tutored, etc., etc.  Oh, and I slept.  But come on, it’s never taken me that many days to get grading done.  It was painfully slow.

And guess what, I’m giving exams this week, so I get to do this all over again later in the week.  BUT, at least exams are easier to grade than projects!

Perhaps the G word gives all teachers some job security.  If not for grading papers, everyone would want to be a teacher, right?! 

Thirty-six

Yesterday, a guy who I tutor found it was my birthday today and said, “39 again?”

I reacted very automatically and with such horror, “THIRTY NINE??????”

He laughed and said he was just kidding, really.

I said, “I haven’t even been 39 once, how could I be 39 again?!?!?!”

He reiterated that he really was just kidding (and now probably starting to question my stability!).

I just sat there shaking my head, no, no, no, I am not 39.  I am NOT 39.

I am, however, 36.  As of 8:28 this morning.

Teaching Thursdays #98

I knew when I saw the huge volume of new messages in my e-mailbox last night that my students were freaking out!  They had a project due today that involved a fair amount of work using Excel.  And most of them were having a similar problem, with the labels for one part of their Excel graphs not showing up right.  One after another, they were sending me messages saying “HELP!” and “IT DOESN’T WORK!”

So, I sent out my first “My dear students…” e-mails of the semester.  I e-mailed the entire classes and pointed them in the right direction to answer the question they all had.  This is not what I said but it was the response going through my head as I read all the panicked accounts from them:

My dear students… It’s really going to be OK, one easy change, and the graph will be fine.  I promise you, It Will Be OK!  It’s great that you noticed the graph wasn’t right — A+ for paying attention to that detail, not everybody would notice it.  I love that you are working so hard at this, and look at all you’re learning by trying and trying again!  This is what education is all about, trying and testing and looking things up and being frustrating and working through it and finding answers.  Education it not a straight path where I give you a formula, you plug numbers in, and get the right answer.  Education is all about figuring out the process, figuring out what you need to know and do, and figuring out how to get it done. 

And, it will be OK.

Drama class, Day 9

We read a two-person romantic comedy (Talley’s Folly) at my drama class tonight.  I don’t like reading the plays with fewer parts than we have people in the class because we have to switch parts, and it’s just not as fun as everyone being involved through the whole play.  It was a cute play though!  Some funny lines that I had to laugh through again!

Two of my classmates from the summer drama class will be performing in “Arsenic and Old Lace” this weekend.  I’m so excited to see them on stage!  My buddies!