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.

Lazy Cat

Tucker's favorite resting place is to lie in the window of the kitchen. He loves it when I open it up and he can stretch across it. The weather's been unusually nice lately so I've had the windows open more. Here is a shot of my lazy boy lounging happily.

First Days of Classes Fall '09

Two days of first classes done. I am teaching 6 writing classes this semester: 4 Prep Writing I and 2 Prep Writing II classes. Luckily for me, all of the Writing I classes are on the same days (MWF) and all of the Writing II classes are on the same days (TR). The only bad things are the sheer number of students that I have right now: almost 23 in each class though of course not all students showed up for the first day of classes. Wednesday will give me a better idea of who is actually going to be in each of my classes and how many are going to stay there.

Once again, I forgot how exhausting these first few days really are. It felt good to be back in the swing of things, but by Monday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. when my last class of the day was over, I could barely keep my eyes open. I think it's the repositioning myself as the "extrovert" I have to pretend to be when in the classroom. All summer long, I've been able to be an introvert, keeping to myself most of the time, but for 4 hours solid, I had to be "on" in front of a group. When I came home that day, I actually fell asleep on the couch for about half an hour and didn't even realize I'd done it. One minute I'm watching the Nightly News with Brian Williams and the next thing I know, the local news is on. I'm not a big nap taker, but I just couldn't help it that day.

I don't yet have a good read on what my students are like. There are just too many of them and we haven't had our "getting to know you" session yet. That's coming on Wednesday. I also still have students asking me to let them into my classes. They are already so full! It's hard to say no, but the numbers are getting overwhelming. A result of the combination of a bad economy, high student enrollment, and not enough teachers.

Thinking about Kenny

It's a Thursday night, and I'm sitting around home missing my Kenny. Here are a few shots to bring him a little closer while he's half a world away.

Mt. Rushmore, March 2009.

With Brother Tom in our backyard. July 2009.

With Artemus. Sometime in 2008.

With Tucker in the Romeoville apt. 2007

Building sand castles with Audra at Backbone State Park, May 2008.

Meet Me in St. Louis...Louis..

Greetings from St. Louis. I was here with my friend Desi taking part in an Army Family Programs Academy conference. We drove here in a pretty fun rental car -- a Pontiac G6. On our way, we stopped in Hannibal for lunch at the Mark Twain Dinette. While there, we stopped at the Native American Trading Company so that Desi could peruse the goods as she is one half Cherokee. She purchased a really cool Beaver claw necklace.

We continued on our way until we got to St. Louis where we went to a reception for Army people that evening. We met some really nice and funny girls from a tiny town in West Virginia. This was their first trip out of their town of Clay, WV and their first trip on an airplane. They were pretty funny to listen to as they told their travel stories.

Saturday found us in conference sessions all day, but I entertained myself with some typing on the new laptop and some checking of email, etc. Once done, we escaped out into the scorching heat and humidity of St. Louis to explore the area around our hotel. We were in the Hilton by the Ballpark, so we had a view of the new Busch Stadium from our hotel window. We agreed it looks pretty darn good from the air conditioned room. But...we went out anyway. We were near a park that has a whole mess of mini Arches. From there, we had a picturesque view of the real Arch and some big white building (we think it's a museum of sorts but the name escapes me).

While taking some pictures, we were amused by two wedding parties that we saw taking a ton of pictures right where we wanted to take pictures. It was kind of annoying. I remarked how hot it was several times (much to Desi's dismay) and how I would hate to be getting married in this heat. She told me I would never make it as a soldier in the desert, and boy is she right! I can't stand the thought of Ken having to be anywhere where it's as hot or hotter than this. She then called us a couple of old married women and I said it's still weird for me to think of myself as being an old married woman -- probably because I've only been married about 5 months and Ken has been gone for 3 of them.

We wandered around the Arch and then thought we would try to go up it, but we found out that we would have had to wait about an hour and a half to get on the elevators. So instead we wandered around inside the base of it and went into some stores. I bought an Arch magnet and then we played a rousing of checkers in a little mercantile store.

We decided to go lounge in the air conditioned hotel for the rest of the evening. Great minds think alike! There we rested comfortably for our morning sessions the next day. On Sunday, it was back in the car and back to Iowa.

August Cometh

August. These days my time is spent trying to stay as busy as possible so the days do not feel as loney as they really are now that Ken's officially gone and in country. It also helps me to not think about what's happening over there. My recent projects have been taking on more roles in the Family Readiness Group (FRG) for the Ken's unit. This is essentially a group run by family members to help support those family and friends of soldiers left behing during a deployment. I started off as the newsletter person and the website person. Now I'm helping with more leadership duties and have taken on the role of Phone Tree coordinator which means making calls and keeping track of any problems that arise from calls made. It's proven to be much more time consuming than I expected and I find myself working on it about 3 hours a day. I don't know what I'm going to do once school starts. I will certainly not have as much time to devote to it then.

I can't write much else right now as I'm pooped from helping my buddy Lynn with some more flood cleanup at her house. We've really dug into her garage and today, our second day, found us making a dump run and cleaning out storage totes so that she can start organizing things into clean containers. It's really a rewarding project and we can see dramatic changes each time we work.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to my office to work on fall syllabi and to continue preparing my office for my new officemate. So much to do and so little time left to do it! In a couple of weeks, it's back to work and back to students. When August cometh, summer endeth.