Luna del'Corvo

I mean, it takes effort, because every day there is some absolutely insane thing happening, but here we go; a list of Good Things™.

It is a sunny, gorgeous day, supposed to hit almost 70. For February, that is a wonderful thing. Feb. is hard because it's usually so grey, so this is most welcome!

I splurged and ordered myself some new colored pencils (I do not need these; y'all have no idea how many colored pencils this gal has!) in hopes of getting my drawing groove back on. I've been at that place where I feel the itch, just not the motivation.

I am working on what I hope will be a cool thing for the kiddos at school. We're studying China, so I had them all color circles (about 7" across) with Chinese motifs but didn't tell them what for. Another SS teacher and I are going to assemble them with added head and tail, into two gigantic dragons that we will hang in the hallway outside our classrooms. It won't last the week, I am sure, but I hope it will be at least a little bit of a 'wow' for some of them. (Yes, I will post photos if it works out!)

My next unit will be the Middle Ages, which is something of a mixed blessing. Yes, it's my medieval jam, so that's awesome! I get to talk about the 12th C Renaissance and Dante and manuscripts... But I can't teach it in anywhere near the depth I'd like, and the studied indifference of the middle schooler stings a little extra when it's something I'm super enthused about. Alas... but Middle Ages! Yay!!!!

My tinkering project lately has been getting a somewhat 'modernized' (i.e. modded) version of Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion running and stable. Mixed success, but I'm discovering a lot of things that seemed incongruous in Skyrim actually make sense now, so that's cool.

I found a new place that has amazing (and cheap!) falafel, and the deliver to my school. I positively gorged on falafel and hummus for lunch, and it was glorious. It's funny how really good food can make things seem a bit better. Now I need a nap, though. Grrr.

So there we go. It's far from ground breaking, but it felt good to think about some positive stuff for a change.

Well, it's one more day and a wakeup before I'm back in the classroom. I can't complain - I got a full extra week on account of the snow, which I will never turn down. It makes going back seem so surreal though.

It will be a day of reteaching expectations (how to be a student as opposed to a feral meerkat), and then it's on to Mongols, then China, then the Middle Ages. I think for China, we will do the blue pottery art project again, and for the Middle Ages, I'm thinking of having them make manuscript pages... I've done it in a one-week, half-day summer camp, so maybe? No calligraphy pens, though! I'm not that brave!

For now, though, one more lazy, snowy Sunday ahead... Time for cocoa, I think.

Sitting here with a cat on my lap, a cocoa at my elbow, in my jammies, enjoying the second of three (three!) snow days. Gotta be grateful for the gifts that come, eh? Though, I will admit, there is a touch of 'delaying the execution' in terms of the dread of going back. And I know the kids will be bonkers! At least I will only have them for 2 days before the weekend, right?

So, real life entry! Been a pretty good week, actually. This is my last full week of uni classes (thank goodness!) though my HS/MS classes will go through the end of May. 

The yard is pretty much stabilized, so if I can keep up with the few weeds/vines that pop up for a few more weeks, I think I will have a good handle on it not becoming a jungle again! Imagine: I might even be able to USE my patio! Who'dd'a thunk it???

The niblet is in the Chamber Choir at his HS, and last night they did an amazing rendition of Gabriel Fauré's Requiem with the choir and orchestra. There were a few squeakers from the orchestra, but it was a really good performance, especially for such an incredibly complicated piece! I'm so proud of that kid I could burst sometimes. Of course I was geeking out all over the place that they did it in Latin...LOL

Otherwise, I'm just waiting for the weekend! I have a pretty big stack of grading to do, but I should have a good bit of downtime, too. And we should be back to our D&D campaign, which is a lot of work (I'm the DM, and it's an all-original campaign), but a heckuva lot of fun! Mostly, though I'm looking forward to sleeping!

I adore my HS/MS teaching; the school is amazing, the kids are fantastic, I can throw pretty much anything at them and they will tackle it head on. But OMG, I am so not a morning person! At least they start a bit later than Niblet's school, but I still have to get up to get him up, and even so, it's not by much. :( *yawn* Sooooooo sleepy.....

Ok, after my last post, I suppose I ought to counter with some of the good things going on in my life.

Despite my degree frustrations, teaching is really going well. I've been branching out into some new areas, and it's been a lot of fun. My basics are humanities & religious studies, so I teach a lot of history of religion classes. Right now I'm doing "Jews, Christians, and Muslims" which I am teaching as a historical survey of the long history of interaction between the three. Im having to do some quick studying up, because 19th & 20th C history are just not my thing, but it's been rewarding. I got to teach a Dante course, and am currently doing Machiavalli, Thomas More & Erasmus.

On the other hand, the Communication MA has let me do some other fun things. I'm doing my second installment of "Digital Game Culture," where we study video games like one would study art or literature. My students get a kick out of bragging to their friends that the get to play video games as homework!

I'm still teaching high school English, and those kids are amazing! We just finished Inferno, are in the middle of King Lear, and are going to read the Mahabarata next. They are such an incredible group; reading their essays after those I get from my college kids is a breath of fresh air, seriously.

My kiddo is a freshman in high school, and doing a bang up job! He's in AP everything, he's taking a college credit course, and his Algebra teacher can't say enough about his ability in math. He's really started to shine this year. He and my ex get along and spend a lot of time together, and I'm glad. But I can't deny it warms my heart when he tells me he prefers to do stuff with me, and we always have a great time together. He is amazing; I would never have gotten through all the upheaval this last year or so without him.

So all is not doom and gloom. It's a mixed batch some days but some days it's pretty darned good. Next time, all the silly stuff. ;)

Well, almost. I have one stack of exams yet to grade, but I'm done with classes themselves, on both sides of the desk!

I had some amazing work from my students this term; I'm really proud and very impressed by a number of them! Who said you can't teach theory to freshmen? Then again, I had more people just blow stuff off than ever before! Whole research papers without a single citation, students not bothering to turn in research papers (20% of final grade! WTF?) or just taking half the semester 'off' and showing up for the exam. Weird. Still, on balance, a very satisfying semester teaching-wise.

I managed to pull off As in both my own courses, somewhat to my surprise in one case. You may recall the 'difficult' prof I mentioned earlier? The arrogant one, who also threatened to take a letter grade off because of my 'absences' a.k.a. going to and presenting at professional conferences. Um, hello? Isn't that kind of central to the business of academia, and THIS is why you want to dock my grade? Like I turned in any bit of work that wasn't an A.... Oi.

The other course was Comm Theory. On the one hand, it was pretty easy; I've studied half this stuff before in the context of the original theories, like Foucault, Sartre, Baudrillard, etc. On the other, it was kind of hard for me to take some of it seriously, more or less for the same reason. "Oooh, you figured out that people choose what to reveal and what not to reveal for reasons of power? That's nice; Foucault did that 20 years before you did, and did it better." On one of my essays RE this theory ("Privacy Management Theory") I attached a few pages of Foucault's chapter on confession and the perpetual spirals of power and pleasure. Arrogant, perhaps. The program seems to keep falling over itself at having an 'academic' in the program (the vast majority are business folks taking this as a first graduate experience for the sake of advancement in their jobs), so the professors I've worked with tend to appreciate that I take a different, and decidedly more 'academic' perspective even where I call bullshit on some of what they are teaching. *shrug* Works for me, I suppose.

I'm getting PhD hankerings again. Oi, again. LOL. First thing is going to have to be Latin - I really need to get my shoddy Latin up to snuff to even be considered most anywhere I want to go (options for which are severely limited by my location). Anything I do will involve a commute of some kind - the question is how far, and how often. So we shall see. No hurry, I can keep chipping away at this COMM MA for now, while I explore the possibilities.

Meanwhile - summer break! w00t! What the heck am I going to do with myself all summer! (OK, try to brush up Latin, but OTHER than that.....LOL)

No, actually, it's going really well! In my classes, I turned in the 'Giant Research Prospectus from You-Know-Where (TM) and gave the accompanying presentation. Got my grades back, and perfect scores on both! Ah-boo-yah! Finished that class with 359 our of 395 possible points! I guess I can handle this COMM stuff after all! One more grade to get in my other class, but I have no real concerns there, either. Last class for that one meets at the professor's house, which should be very nice!

I am buried in papers to grade for my own classes though! Final total will be something like 40 8-10page research papers, and as many essay final exams. (Maybe I need to look into scantron exams after all.....) But I'll get through it, and overall, my classes are wrapping up really nicely! I've had a lot of students tell me they've enjoyed it, which is always a real bonus for an instructor!

Enough of that - off to grade, and then to turn in course proposals for Fall '13! Egad! Cheers!

Well, I had my chair in to evaluate my teaching today. *collapses in nervous heap* I wasn't really too wigged about it before hand, and class went fine, but I find I'm a little wound up now, after the fact!

I think it went well. We ended early, but we were reviewing for our mid-term exam, so not much to do about that. It's hard to leave time for students to ask questions, but at the same time, be sure to use all your time.... But my reviewer said he understood, and he seemed pleased. He asked some questions about how the students participate, but said it was good that they were asking questions, and didn't seem afraid to do so. He asked if I had any that just wouldn't talk, and I said there were a few that had only piped up occasionally. He asked if I would pick a student that hadn't talked, and I said I didn't think it was my place to put anyone on the hot seat, but that I would say something like "OK, anyone but these three" or whatever, if I kept getting answers from the same few students. He seemed to like that a lot, too.

Given that the topic is religion, he asked if I was surprised at their (lack of) background knowledge. I said I was sometimes quite surprised, and had had to make some adjustments on that basis. Then I told him I had had them write a mini-bio first thing, and I was really pleased to see that no one had been at all judgmental, but there was a lot of exchange going on between students of different backgrounds. I think he really dug that. He also said he saw good signs (asking questions, taking notes, looking back in their notes in order to offer answers, that kind of thing). He also seemed to like the way I structured the exam, in that I tried to focus on having them make connections in material over just regurgitating facts.

So, I think I've done the best possible, and I shall simply have to wait and see how it comes out in the written report.... (And I'm clam as can be about it. Really. I am, honest....)