Gobble, gobble!

Yes, it's been nearly a month since our last post, and I have no excuses. School is almost finished for the semester (yahooooo!) and I got swept up grading all of my slacker students' late papers and going to grade appeal hearings for other slacker students, and attending meetings to find out the latest negotiations for our contract (We've been teaching since August without one. I've learned a lot about unions this semester. More than I cared to in the span of two months, actually). 

But other than busy-ness, Trevor, Henry, and I have been quite good. We're working our respective butts off (Trevor at his job/s, me at mine, and Henry at the gym because he gained 4.8 lbs. since August) and looking very much forward to the next couple of days. Today we're up to the Buxes house to celebrate Thanksgiving, and then Trevor has the next couple of days off because the gallery is closed. Tomorrow we'll go to the Mac store to get me a new computer (Trevor's birthday gift to me! And speaking of birthdays, I had a great one earlier in the month: everyone sent cards and well wishes, and I got some really thoughtful gifts and I all around felt loved. Thank you everyone!), and perhaps see a movie (I have a gift card from a student of mine [one of my favorites from summer semester] and we want to see Role Models for giggles and Paul Rudd). Saturday is post-Thanksgiving at the Power's, where we will hopefully be playing some Catch Phrase and certainly be eating delicious food. 

We're also THRILLED about our new president-elect, Barack Obama. Although now it's a bit belated, we celebrated (rhymed!) at a neighborhood bar called Archies, where they let us have full run of the place and gave us drink specials. We watched the election returns on their 80" projection t.v. while we ate pizza Dan had brought from Uno's, and we ate cupcakes Liz had baked (50: one for each of the 50 states. I ate Oklahoma. It was delicious). There were about fifty or sixty of us there, and the evening was just a lot of fun, and obviously a success. 

Next week is the last week of classes this semester, and in two weeks I'll have a nearly month-long vacation (And still get paid! It's kind of astounding and I'm still reeling from this perk of being a full time faculty member). I've got quite a bit of work to do while I'm home, though. I'm teaching the creative writing class next semester, and while I'm over the moon with excitement, I'm a bit nervous because it'll be my first time teaching this. I've got to perfect my syllabus by December 13th and then fix up my lesson plans. I'm also the new faculty literary representative for our literary magazine, Voices, so I've got some planning to do for next year's issue, and I'm the new MCC rep. for a writing festival we're hosting at the college in April. I've got to round up four judges for the competition who will also be leading workshops during the festival, and then choose student finalists. It's such an honor to be doing it, but it's going to take a lot of work. I'll let you all know how it goes. 

Well, the kitchen is calling my name; I've got to bake up some macaroni and cheese to bring to tonight's dinner. Yum! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and we'll be updating this with much more regularity. Eat lots of turkey, potatoes, and pie!