Early Frost, Soup and Grading

So it's freezing cold in our house! Yes, really. The thermostat in the hallway said 60 degrees this morning, but it felt like it was 20...probably because it was only 35 or something outside. I forgot to bring the plants in last night, but I think they're ok. They seem to still be green at least if that is any indication of their health.

I spent the morning making soup for a potluck we're having at school today. Like I needed one more thing to do, seriously, but I felt bad because I haven't taken anything in lately and boy do people in my department like to eat. I think that should have been one of the questions during the interview: can you cook and how often can you bring food in? So I made the Zuppa Tuscana that I made for the open house in July. It seemed to be a big hit then, so I thought it might score me some points with the department people too. I may even make some breadsticks to take along. We'll see.

Not much new otherwise. Tomorrow is our midterm break for students. This means students don't have to go to class and we don't have to teach (thank goodness!). However, all faculty have to go to in-service meetings all day. Poop. So much for my day off. Oh well, at least there's a free lunch and I don't have to teach.

I have been swamped with grading lately. I forgot how much time grading actually takes. I should be working on it now, but I was taking a break to respond via email to students' drafts for my classes this evening. I'll get back to it soon. In the mean time, here is a picture of Ken doing his sword line at a wedding we went to last month. Sharp huh? Can you find Ken? He's wearing green. Actually, he's the third one back from the front on the right. Did that even make any sense? I have no idea.

Here's shot of the cat perch Ken hung up in the basement for the cats. It used to be in my apartment in Normal where Tucker would lounge on it constantly. We don' have a good place for it upstairs right now, so he hung it downstairs. The cats now get to sleep downstairs each night because their knocking on doors at 3 a.m. was starting to get a little annoying. They can get to this perch by jumping on the Rubbermaid totes which are located beneath it. It's an adventure. Tucker likes it already, as you can see. It's amazing to me that he can even fit on this thing anymore.

Quick Update

This is a quick post as things are incredibly busy around here. Not only have I been grading non-stop for the past 2 weeks, but there is no end in sight. I have had 50 UNI papers sitting in the back of my car since last Thursday's class waiting to be graded and will receive 60 more papers from my Hawkeye kids on Monday. I've been grading as fast as I can (with some much-needed break in there of course), but I have this conference in Illinois that I've been trying to get ready for at the same time not to mention other regular course preps to attend to.

Though we spent Saturday morning working from home, we did manage to sneak away for a little bit in the afternoon. We headed downtown Waterloo for the 90th anniversary celebration of the John Deere Waterloo Operations. Planning this had been part of my job when working there, so I had to see what it all ended up being. We also had some free "Deere Bucks" from Ken's work, so we went down there for a free lunch and to see the tractors. We only stayed for an hour though as we had to get home and get ready for a wedding in West Liberty, IA (down south toward Iowa City). Ken was part of a military sword line for the bridal party. It was interesting though we had to drive 2 hours down and back and spent too much time away from home and work. Pictures to come in a future post!

Sunday found us at Sister Melissa's for a small birthday celebration for Mom. We enjoyed beautiful weather and grilled out on the patio. Afterwards, some of the gang (Ken, Josh, Jeff, and Dan) tossed the ole football around. Overall, a lovely afternoon. Then it was home again to more grading and getting ready for the week.

That said, I have 5 more Hawkeye papers to grade for Wednesday and then it's time to get started on the 50 UNI papers. Ugh. I may have to haul some of those to Illinois with me for the weekend, which does not thrill me. I need to give them back next week as I'll collect another whole set of papers from them then. This whole 6-class, 3-prep thing is wearing me down. I will have 6 classes next semester at Hawkeye, but there should only be 2 preps and I'll have already taught them this semester, so less busy work then. Sigh. I am looking forward to seeing friends in Illinois this weekend though!!!

Field of Dreams and a Polka Mass

Last weekend, Ken and I journeyed East to Guttenburg, Iowa, home of the St. Mary's fall festival and polka mass. As a first time polka mass-goer, I was treated to the interesting experience of a Catholic service with a bit of a twist: all the music is sung to the tunes of polka songs such as "Roll Out the Barrell" and "In Heaven There is No Beer." It was an interesting service, nice, though a bit surreal. You see, it was sort of like a strange dream. Some parts were normal: the priests walked out in all their adornments holding crosses, Bibles, and the like. They said traditional church-like things, such as various Creeds and blessings and whatnot. Then all of a sudden a German polka band in the front of the church (complete with people in lederhosen and dirndles) would start playing "Beer Barrel Polka" and we'd all be singing a churchy song. People were swaying and enjoying the music and the experience, including me. It really was quite enjoyable -- just something like I've never experienced before.

Afterwards, we enjoyed a wonderful German lunch of fried chicken, potatoes, corn, salads, rolls, and various dessets. We all ate too much, but it was worth it. Then it was off to look at the craft tents and play BINGO! Lisa, Ken, niece Elizabeth and I partook in a few $0.25 games of Bingo. Matt chose to watch but did help Elizabeth with her cards. We were all very excited when Elizabeth got the only win of the family, yelling "BINGO!", scaring many people nearby. I think she won about $7.00. Not bad for a 15 year old drug to the Bingo tent with a bunch of adults. Here she is after her glorious win.

After Bingo, we headed to the Mississippi River to the Lock and Dam to watch the boats go through. Here is a picture of Ken and Lisa in their almost-matching sunglasses. It was a beautiful day to be on the river, and we got to see a couple of smaller recreational boats pass through the Lock. Then Ken had to make his way up to Ft. McCoy, WI where he's been for the past week and will be for the next week for a military class. I rode home with the Wilsons and slept much of the way back.

But before I forget, on the way up to Guttenburg for the polka mass, Ken and I had a few extra minutes so we took a turn and quickly stopped at the Field of Dreams movie site near Dyersville, IA. If you haven't been there before, it's basically just the farm house and the baseball field where the movie was shot in the late '80s. Still, as fans of the movie, we were impressed! Here are a few shots of us around the site. It sure seems a lot smaller than it did in the movie. Note that the white fence wasn't around the house during the filming of the movie. They had to add that to keep people from wandering up to the house. It's an actual residence and people do live there.

Ring picture

I really should be doing something like grading or getting ready for class this week, but I'm pooped and need a break. Plus, I just don't feel like doing any of that right now. So I'm going to try to post a picture of my ring. I've been trying to get a picture posted for a while not, but every time I take a picture, it seems blurry. Finally, I had Ken try to take one farther away and then I zoomed in on it. It might actually look ok now. My ring is white gold, with three stones in the middle and four smaller ones along the side. When we have my wedding band made, it will be all small stones in white gold so that it lines up with the stones on the engagement band.

So there it is!

Thank goodness for 4-day weekends at the beginning of the semester

Week 1 is done. It was certainly quite the busy week. It's going to take some time for me to adjust to 4 classes at Hawkeye and 2 at UNI. It's very interesting seeing just how different the two populations really are. Case in point: I have 2 students at HCC who told me the first day that they are pregnant and several more who already have children (they are younger than I am). At UNI, non of my students have referenced having children or families other than their siblings and parents.

I teach at Hawkeye on MWF and UNI on TR, so at least I am not running all over the place. That will make it nice, I think, when I can go sit up at UNI on TR and grade during the morning for those classes or even work on HCC stuff for class as well. I got all my preps done for 3 of my HCC classes this week as well as my UNI one. I still need to get ready for Wednesday's HCC other class. That's on my agenda for tomorrow.

The good thing is that all of the people I work with at HCC are really nice. I was kind of worried that they might not accept me or would be snooty or resentful toward me for taking the job, but so far, so good. Of course, I haven't really interacted much yet with the adjuncts or RPT writing teachers since we have very different teaching schedules. Soon our meetings together will begin though I think. Starting the week after this one, I'll also be taking a new faculty course called Linking Teaching and er...something or other. We're required to take it as new faculty and we get "graduate credit for it"...ohh...just what I want. At least the tuition is reimburseable through the college. It's weird to think they require us to take these courses and give us credit for it. I hadn't exactly been planning on taking more classes right away, but at least they're teaching courses, so hopefully they'll be interesting.

We had a nice Labor Day weekend! We had our last garage sale of the season on Saturday. Sister Maria came and helped out all day, and thank goodness she did because we we're busier than I ever imagined we'd be on a holiday weekend. We made over $200 on a 1-day sale, which will be divided between Maria, Lisa, and Ken and me, based on what items we each sold. Ken and I plan to use garage sale money for house-related items. Right now we're thinking about either putting the money toward a nice clock for the living room or a rug for the living room floor. We haven't decided yet. The best part is that our garage is just about cleaned out again. We'll be able to put one of the cars in come winter!

Well, the night is drawing to a close and I want to get some sleep for the week. More later!

Developmental Writing Instructor, am I (alt. title: Kiss of JD!)

I did it! I got a different job! And not a moment too soon, I might add. I was going crazy in my other job (and I secretly think Ken was too just having to deal with me). I just couldn't handle any more nights of coming home from work, feeling said, hurt, frustrated, and then falling into fits of crying. You see, they hired me to be a Communication Specialist, but they gave me so little to do. Most of my day consisted of trying to look busy. One of my "projects" was in fact reading the local paper for articles written about the company. How's that for a Ph.D. coming in handy?

Of course, I would get the occasional article to write for the newsletter or to proofread, but seriously, those things just don't take very long. I don't know whether they thought writing a 1-page article on some dude's visit to the tractor plant should take 2-3 weeks to write or whether I was just writing fast, crappy articles. It also hurt a lot that the student worker (who is completing her BA in PR at UNI) got to take on cooler projects than me. Case in point, while I'm reading the newspaper, she's designing cool posters for the 90th anniversary celebration. While I'm responding to emails from people asking to have their name added/removed from a listserv, she's designing handouts for the managers' meeting. Add to that the many times she bossed me around by saying, "If you're bored, you can run these AA batteries down to recycling" or "If you're bored, you can organize the paper drawers next to the copying machine." Pu-leeze. WHo did that girl think she is?! Then, of course was the general feeling of being the uninvited guest to two BFFs' sleepover. Aforementioned student worker and our supervisor were obviously BFFs from the time before I arrived, so I clearly was a most unwelcome addition. They would sit behind my cubicle chatting all day long while ignoring the fact that I was even in the same dept (there were only 3 of us in the dept). My personal favorite was the day the 3 of us were sitting at lunch when student worker asked boss if she wanted to split an ice cream cookie ignoring the fact that I too am at the table with them. Then she proceeded to bring it back to the table, make a big deal about cutting it in half for the TWO of them, and then stared me right in the eye while she ate it, of course making a big deal about how good it was.

And so, in the midst of dealing with this hellacious work environment, I applied for a different job, and my prayers were answered when I got the call Friday night at 6 pm that Hawkeye CC wanted me! Yes, it's a little late in the season considering classes start in only a few days, but I'll take it, and take it I did! Gave JD notice on Monday at 8 am and promptly left for new faculty orientation at 9 a.m.! I had to go back half a day yesterday to work at JD and then all day today since I wasn't giving them a full 2 weeks notice, but like it even mattered. Seriously. They were all fake nice to me as I left, and I'm sure they'll be snarky now that I'm not around. But who cares, I'm outta there! They can have their little chit chats and their ice cream all by themselves now. Plus little student worker can run her own freaking batteries down to the recycling.

So, that said, I have a ton of work to do and need to get busy on some syllabi! I have a faculty in-service tomorrow. Oh, wow, this will be a busy weekend! Oh, and did I mention that I'll get paid more at Hawkeye and will actually have the college pay for my benefits! Woo Hoo! It's about bloody time this degree paid off. Yay!

Playing Hooky

I'm home from work today because I hurt my back on Sunday. I wish I had a better story for how I hurt it, but unfortunately it was just "one of those things." I had come home from church and a quick trip to the grocery store with mom and was just about to sit in the living room and have a little lunch. I bent over to get a pillow off the couch and oops, something hurt. I guess I've pulled a muscle or something, but the amount of pain that comes with such an event is enough to make me think I broke a vertebre or something. I was flat on my back for the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening, and when I awoke, I knew there was no way I was going to make it into work today. As the day's gone on, the pain has lessened somewhat, but it is still there. The worst times are after I've been lying down and want to get up or when I'm upright and want to sit/lie down. That doesn't give me much choice. Either get down and stay down or get up and stay up.

I've managed to walk around the house a bit more this afternoon and have found that sitting in the computer chair is actually more comfortable than the bed or couch because it sits up higher and takes less effort to get up or down. Great -- now if I could just sleep in this chair and wheel myself to work tomorrow. I want to be able to go to work tomorrow at least for part of the day. I guess we'll see come morning.

Mom brought me a veritable medicine cabinet of creams and lotions that are supposed to ease muscle pain. Thankfully most of them don't make me smell old. I just can't really tell if they work or not. Ibuprofin doesn't seem to do a darn thing, let me tell you. But I am now a firm believer that all households must have at least one heating pad!!! Thank goodness, due to a Christmas miscommunication, we own two. I had Ken position one on the couch before he left for work this morning and I had one in bed with me. The thought of having to bend down to plug one in was more than I could stand this morning.

I think I'm now going to try to work on my syllabus/assignments for the comp classes I'm teaching in 2 weeks. That was supposed to be on my calendar for yesterday, but as you can imagine, that didn't happen. I have to take breaks when sitting here as my back gets more achy the longer I sit. Here's hoping this goes away by tomorrow!

If anyone has any good/interesting bachache remedies, please pass them along. I'll try anything at this point.