Illinois Wedding Shower

At last, a moment to post some wedding shower pictures! During the last weekend in January, my friends, Claire and Jan, in Illinois gave me a shower/tea. It was a wonderful day and it was just so much fun getting to see the Illinois friends that I miss so much. Going back made me feel like a grad student again, in this case, a nice feeling. My mom and I drove out on Friday after classes. I got to sleep in my "old room" again, which was cool, but also made me remember those dissertation-writing days which were only a year ago! Saturday was spent getting ready for the afternoon shower at Claire's house. Here are some pictures to put the day in perspective.

Because it was a shower thrown by and mostly for people who teach writing or who are involved in English in some way, the day had to begin with a little writing/creative activity. Claire had materials all set out for people to put together a page of wedding advice or some personal message to Ken and me. I got to wander around and supervise what people were doing as I was going to get to read the book later in the day/evening. People wrote some really touching messages, and I know this will be a book I'll treasure forever.

Then, of course there was the absolutely wonderful carrot cake that Jan brought to the shower, along with chocolates from the Chocolatier in Bloomington, nuts, and tea. While people were feasting on the delicacies, I began opening presents so as not to delay the afternoon too long. I was taken aback at how generous my friends were as Ken and I received many lovely gifts for our home. Among some of the presents received were cookware, a cake plate/dome, roasting pan, picture frame, fondu pot, birdhouse, and wine. Some friends were not going to make it to the wedding in Iowa, so they shared shower and wedding gifts including a clock, webcam so Ken and I can stay in touch while he's in Iraq, and a GPS navigator for the car. In all, Ken and I now have many wonderful items to help build our home up. I am excited because now we have newer items to start with and can pass along some of our grad student/bachelor apartment items!

It was great to see everyone again. Before we knew it, the weekend was over and Mom and I were driving back to Iowa. The following weekend we had another shower for my Iowa friends and family, which was also a lot of fun. I'll try to get pictures posted from that soon.

Just Checking In

I don't have much time to write, but I just wanted to check in. Work is crazy now for many reasons:

1) I've collected my first sets of papers for the semester. That means 6 sets of writing papers for my 6 classes. There are about 12-15 papers in each set, which might not seem like a lot until you realize how much commenting there is for me to do on them considering they are all very developmental and it's their first paper, so they're all making the "first time" errors.

2) Wedding items still loom large and in front. So much to do and only about 3 weeks left to go! Hard to believe, huh? Tomorrow, Ken and I are off to get the rings picked up and go get the marriage license. Hopefully, my dress will be ready late this week so that will be one less thing. I had two lovely showers recently, but that means Thank Yous to finish writing. I have just 1-2 left and then I'm done. Thank goodness! Who knew writing those would take so long!!! This weekend it's wrapping up table chocolates and preparing the rehearsal dinner invites and programs. Thanks to everyone who weighed in via email about my name change dilemma. I'm leaning toward keeping my own name now. I never realized how much work is involved with a name change. Wow!

3) Things at work are good for the most part with the exception of some terribly behaved students and an incident yesterday involving one terribly rude/aggressive student and a teacher in my dept. I swear, I've never had such bad cases of students with no discipline, a lack of maturity, and who are just plain rude. I have one class that I dread going to every Tuesday/Thursday because the students are so whiny, want everything spelled out for them, don't want to do the reading, talk over me and each other, have cell phone use issues, and then proceed to just simply be complete and utter jerks. I really seriously hate going to that class. About 2/3 of the students are great and it's only about 3-4 that are driving me nuts, but still, just those few make me dislike going and dealing with them.

Other things at work are kind of shaky too. The terrible economy has taken its toll on our college and we have to cut almost 25% of our budget due to the state budget crisis (the issue is that we have to cut an additional $1.2 million or something). The college president is now talking staff reductions and everyone is wondering who is going to be let go. I worry because I am a new hire and "low woman on the totem pole." My only hope is that I'm the only full-time writing instructor and I teach in Dev. Studies, a part of the campus that serves nearly 50% of the students. Still, it doesn't mean much when the circumstances are so bad. We're all worried about our jobs and what's yet to come. This topic took up the bulk of conversation during lunch today in the office. I feel bad complaining about students when there are so many other things to worry about with work, job security, etc.

I hope to have time this weekend to post some shower pictures.