The end of a looooong week

Last week was one of the worst, as in busiest, weeks of the semester. I hesitate to event write that though considering that on Wednesday and Thursday of this coming week my students -- 138 of them -- are turning in their first papers. Last week, however, I got a sneak peak at them all when the students turned in their first and second drafts for review. My hope is that it will take less time to grade the final copies if I saw them a few times first. Fingers crossed.

It's definitely been a busy semester. I'm trying to remember though if it's as busy as last fall when I was teaching 4 courses at HCC and 2 at UNI. That was 3 preps and each of them a relatively new course. Plus the UNI classes were longer papers as that was a Comp class. This semester, it's another 6 classes but it's only 2 different ones and I've taught them both before. So why does it seem so much busier this year?

I think it's a combination of things. For starters, I have more students per class this semester and so many "student issues" have popped up already. HCC students have far more issues than the UNI ones did. Case in point, last week, I had one student come to class and call me out into the hall to talk about being assaulted by her sig. other which had just happened. She was still pretty shaken up, so immediately after class, I walked her over to the counselor. Then I had 2 students cheat on an assignment, so we had to have "the talk." Plus the multiple classes with the "chatty Cathy's" -- mostly males in this case who won't shut up in class. I can't tell you how many times I've had to talk to them about talking too much or when I've started to snap in class because they don't hear directions because they were talking and so want me to repeat them for the 4th or 5th time. The group this semester just seems so so so immature. Then of course, there are the classes where no one, and I do mean no one, will talk or discuss when they are supposed to. So I've had to do some work to restructure how we're going to do things this week in class. Some of the other ways that I've done things that have worked in the past just aren't cutting it now. Ah, the fun of teaching.

The other reason why I think it seems more busy around here is simply the fact that Ken's not here. I get the joy of doing everything around the house by myself, and while it didn't seem so bad in the summer when I was off work, I'm really starting to notice it now that I have to do it all in addition to work. The nicest thing happened the other day. I came home from getting groceries yesterday to find that my neighbor George had asked his lawn mowing guy to take care of my lawn too. He even went all around with the weed eater and trimmed the place up nice. What a treat! Not to have to mow the lawn was about the nicest thing that could have happened to me with everything else that was going on. Thanks George!

Never Turn Your Back on a Hungry Cat

Yes, I realize that I'm getting dangerously close to making this an all-cat blog, but with Ken gone, they are my only real entertainment these days.

So here I am on a Sunday trying to work on my lesson plans for the week and thinking to myself how much work I have to get done today alone. I get up for a moment to stretch my legs, and when I come back, I find that Tucker has helped himself to my little ice cream treat I stupidly left unattended on the table. Note how Artemus is looking so innocent and not the least bit interested in being involved with such a criminal act.

Here's a close up of the culprit.