More Updates
Well, Thursday's morning class was sheer bliss. Everything went well. My wrist was feeling so good (I had full movement!) that I didn't wear the brace, the students responded well to group work, and they enjoyed learning about sentence fragments (this last was probably helped along by my worksheet on Papa Smurf's moonshine operation). I got them back on track with ease, and they asked intelligent questions. I have never had a greater experience.
The other shoe, however, contained an entirely different foot. The afternoon class was a riot--in the stamping of feet, clamouring of many angry voices, blatant disregard for rules type of way. These guys just don't care. I'm not sure how to motivate them. I spent about twice the time I'd planned for doing thesis statements, because instead of working with their partner, they each wanted me to go over their individual statement. I finally had to cut it short and re-announce my office hours. Surprisingly, I had 7 takers for that. They hardly got to the Smurf story, and I ran out of time to go over it with them properly.
And, the highlight of my Thursday, one of my better students in that class "covertly" started text messaging someone. Rather than cause a scene, which lets them all know I'm irritated (a bad thing to let them know, as they then work together to irritate the prof), I pretended I couldn't see what he was doing, and walked over to the other side of the room to help a student. As I came back over, he tried to cover his cell phone, and I muttered just loud enough for him to hear: "You might want to put that away before I take it from you." He was shocked that I'd known what he was up to, but let me tell you, he could never hack it as a spy of any kind.
So there was Thursday. Sorry about the lack of HNT. It was a busy,busy day. On Friday, I worked on my novel. The office saw me at 8 am, and aside from taking lunch at Rosa's for E's b-day, the office and I were close and personal until after 10 pm. But you know what? I got the most amazing amount of work done. K.C. and the Sunshine Band have a way of keeping you moving, and the continual presence of folks in and out actually provided enough tiny breaks to keep me plugging away at the map.
I have an atlas of the place now, and it's all labeled. The cities are all properly placed, and all I've yet to do on the map is make two extra copies of each country, and put all the cities on the giant world map. Each country takes 2-4 sheets of paper to get in full, and the overall world map is downright huge. So after I scratch in all the cities on the world map Sunday afternoon and write up a three sentence summary of each city's major claim to fame, a trip to Kinko's is in order. I'm thinking Kinko's on Wednesday afternoon, and the doctor for this Friday.
And there's the segue leading to the return of arthritis. All that handwriting in small letters fucked (excuse my french) my wrist up again. All that movement I was so proud of fled the next day due to the mapping. Well, to be realistic, I can move the thing still, but now it hurts again. It hasn't gotten to the point where it was before the last doctor's visit, but I'm not letting it get there. I'm going to go in and let them suck my blood out. I'm getting more than sick of this. My handwriting isn't legible with the brace, so I have to finish the map without it, which will make my Sunday afternoon sheer hell on earth. But with all that writing, by Friday I'm sure my wrist will be nice and bloodwork-worthy. The stupid thing hurts with or without the brace, but it's a dull burning as long as the brace is preventing it from moving. The real pain comes with movement. And damn it all, I thought I'd get more than three days of relative comfort before my wrist acted up again.
Also, I've decided that I'm going to buy the voice recognition software. It's a matter of saving up for it. I should be able to get it by early November. I can save all sorts of money on my energy bill since it's the perfect temperature out and the A/C is not necessary, and I can cut back on other stuff too.
And that's my life right now. Classes are going well, 1301 is going well-ish, thesis kicks ass, and wrist also kicks ass, in a different way. To end on a high note, I finally made a pot of beans that doesn't taste like BEANS. The little guys found some flavor somehow, and this rocks, though I doubt I can reproduce the effect. I'm going to ask K how to make beans when I see her next, and get a list of what she puts in them. Her beans never taste like BEANS. They've always got this rich flavor I utterly envy in cooking.
Well, I'm off to write some more, and then go to bed.
End.
The other shoe, however, contained an entirely different foot. The afternoon class was a riot--in the stamping of feet, clamouring of many angry voices, blatant disregard for rules type of way. These guys just don't care. I'm not sure how to motivate them. I spent about twice the time I'd planned for doing thesis statements, because instead of working with their partner, they each wanted me to go over their individual statement. I finally had to cut it short and re-announce my office hours. Surprisingly, I had 7 takers for that. They hardly got to the Smurf story, and I ran out of time to go over it with them properly.
And, the highlight of my Thursday, one of my better students in that class "covertly" started text messaging someone. Rather than cause a scene, which lets them all know I'm irritated (a bad thing to let them know, as they then work together to irritate the prof), I pretended I couldn't see what he was doing, and walked over to the other side of the room to help a student. As I came back over, he tried to cover his cell phone, and I muttered just loud enough for him to hear: "You might want to put that away before I take it from you." He was shocked that I'd known what he was up to, but let me tell you, he could never hack it as a spy of any kind.
So there was Thursday. Sorry about the lack of HNT. It was a busy,busy day. On Friday, I worked on my novel. The office saw me at 8 am, and aside from taking lunch at Rosa's for E's b-day, the office and I were close and personal until after 10 pm. But you know what? I got the most amazing amount of work done. K.C. and the Sunshine Band have a way of keeping you moving, and the continual presence of folks in and out actually provided enough tiny breaks to keep me plugging away at the map.
I have an atlas of the place now, and it's all labeled. The cities are all properly placed, and all I've yet to do on the map is make two extra copies of each country, and put all the cities on the giant world map. Each country takes 2-4 sheets of paper to get in full, and the overall world map is downright huge. So after I scratch in all the cities on the world map Sunday afternoon and write up a three sentence summary of each city's major claim to fame, a trip to Kinko's is in order. I'm thinking Kinko's on Wednesday afternoon, and the doctor for this Friday.
And there's the segue leading to the return of arthritis. All that handwriting in small letters fucked (excuse my french) my wrist up again. All that movement I was so proud of fled the next day due to the mapping. Well, to be realistic, I can move the thing still, but now it hurts again. It hasn't gotten to the point where it was before the last doctor's visit, but I'm not letting it get there. I'm going to go in and let them suck my blood out. I'm getting more than sick of this. My handwriting isn't legible with the brace, so I have to finish the map without it, which will make my Sunday afternoon sheer hell on earth. But with all that writing, by Friday I'm sure my wrist will be nice and bloodwork-worthy. The stupid thing hurts with or without the brace, but it's a dull burning as long as the brace is preventing it from moving. The real pain comes with movement. And damn it all, I thought I'd get more than three days of relative comfort before my wrist acted up again.
Also, I've decided that I'm going to buy the voice recognition software. It's a matter of saving up for it. I should be able to get it by early November. I can save all sorts of money on my energy bill since it's the perfect temperature out and the A/C is not necessary, and I can cut back on other stuff too.
And that's my life right now. Classes are going well, 1301 is going well-ish, thesis kicks ass, and wrist also kicks ass, in a different way. To end on a high note, I finally made a pot of beans that doesn't taste like BEANS. The little guys found some flavor somehow, and this rocks, though I doubt I can reproduce the effect. I'm going to ask K how to make beans when I see her next, and get a list of what she puts in them. Her beans never taste like BEANS. They've always got this rich flavor I utterly envy in cooking.
Well, I'm off to write some more, and then go to bed.
End.
posted by Rehkmira @ 23:38
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home