Saturday, January 31, 2009

School Days Are Here Again

And I've just survived fifteen of them! The third week of Spring semester is over, and so far the term is off to a nice start. My Creative Writing class is even better than I'd hoped for. The students are all writing workshop nubies, but they've had two rounds of workshopping their classmates' work, and they've been terrific--they've given insightful and respectful criticisms and compliments. I'm so proud of them. And, as a little personal perk and ego boost, one of my students in that class was in the Comp 2 class with my crazy religious student, and in front of Creative Writing class on the second day, she brought up that she'd noticed my new syllabus statement (warning students about potentially sensitive material). My returning student went a little crazy (good crazy) about how irritated and angry she was at the newspaper article, and how it didn't have all of the facts and that the student was untruthful about the final exam only being on the 'offensive' book. Of course, I knew that the article wasn't accurate, but it was so satisfying that my student not only felt the same way, but brought it up in class. My students had a brief discussion about academic freedom, and my returning student made a comment about what a good teacher I was, at which time I cut off the discussion to get into the lesson plan before my ego inflated too big to fit in the room. It was such a great way to start off the semester. 

My other classes are going well, too. I've got two Comp 1 classes and two Intro classes, so it's quite a good balance. I've been busy with plans for a writing festival the college is hosting in April (a festival that I'm planning. I was not aware we were hosting it when I volunteered to "help out."). And I'm the literary representative this year for our lit magazine, which is shaping up to be a lot of fun, though it, too, will be a lot of work. The designer wants the magazine to be round (in shape. Yes, I know. It's a book.). I'm a bit worried about the logistics of that, but we'll work it out. Hopefully she'll realize how expensive the printing of a round book will be and we won't be able to do it. Or, if we do, it won't be as odd as I'm imagining it as. 

Trevor's keeping busy at the gallery, getting the word out about the August switch-over to an event rental-only space, and he's having quite a bit of reward so far. Also, quite a few cookies! The Limelight Catering folks were over for a tour of the space last week, and they brought him a box FULL of delicious cookies. If you guys remember, Limelight catered our wedding, and we still remember how goo-hooo-hood the food was. One of the girls in the tour group was actually at our wedding (she remembered the books), and Trevor told them how frequently we refer them to other people. And, needless to say, the cookies were a hugely welcomed treat. There were these bar cookies with a peanut butter base and a jelly like substance on top, and my GOD were they tasty. And of course, there were ginger snaps, chocolate chippers, oatmeal raisin, shortbread hearts dipped in chocolate, pistachio biscotti, and some others I can't remember. There are still a few left, but there won't be for much longer. 

Tomorrow we're going to a Superbowl party at Greg and Paula's, and although we don't really have a team affiliation, we plan to eat a lot of junk food and yell a lot at the television about touchdowns and field goals and holding. Now that's some serious fun. 

Speaking of football, our football team, Manchester United, is first in the English Premiere League, and our goalkeeper has gone almost eighteen game hours without giving up a goal, which is a record. AND he's thirty-eight years old, which is also kind of a record. And he's just plain fantastic.

I have a lot of papers to grade tomorrow, and a bunch of other work, but I think I'll spend at least a bit of time drinking coffee and watching Barcelona whip some other Spanish league team into shape. So goooo Steelers! or gooooo Cardinals! Gooooo snack foods!! 

Monday, January 5, 2009

This won't scratch the surface...

...but here's a mini-update before I turn in for the night, so you can whet your appetites for the longer version to come tomorrow. 

Trevor and I had a holiday extravaganza starting the night before Christmas Eve. We went to Greg and Paula's for what was supposed to be a Bork and Nichols pre-holiday feast. Mother Nature didn't like the idea, however, because she tossed down what seemed like 18 feet of snow and 85 mph gusts of wind down on Chicagoland. The future city Borks, still doing the suburban thing, couldn't make it to the current city Bork's, but Trevor and I and the Nichols muscled our way to Humboldt Park for some delicious food and festivities. Henry came with us and had a marvelous time playing with Pepper and driving Tequila and Peanut crazy. The future city Borks were sorely missed. 

Christmas Eve was at the Bosco's, and although there wasn't any snow, it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey (yes, I said it!). We opened presents, ate good food at a very long table, and had an all around good time. 

Christmas Day was spent at the future city Bork's current suburban location (Dare I say the last party there? I dare!). The food was excellent, start to finish, and the mood was perfectly post-Christmas Eve low-key. Or as low-key as the Borks, Boscos, and Buxes can get when they're all in the same house (i.e. it was very loud and not at all low-key. we had a great time). The cousins resurrected (or brought back from hiatus?) our Christmas Day movie tradition to see Marley and Me, a super tearjerker that, as Trevor put so well, was a bit too true to life (a study of how a married couple can truly be unhappy at nearly every step of their lives together while still being in love). It's not exactly the "feel good movie of the year," as some of the ads were claiming, and it's definitely one that many people we know should avoid (Anyone who's ever owned a dog, met a dog, or seen a dog on t.v. Anyone who's ever had a baby, thought about having a baby, met a baby, thought about meeting a baby, or seen a baby on t.v.). 

The day after Christmas was spent doing a bit of shopping and prepping for a get-together with the Power clan at our house on Saturday. The evening, though, was spent at the River Forest Madel's house with the Power Brothers, spouses, Grandma and Grandpa Madel, Jim, and RACHEL POWER! Yes, you read right, folks! That sneaky sneakerson had snuck her way up from Florida to Chicago with the help of one Mrs. Angelique Power. Rae surprised everyone, though the Power Brothers showed their excitement with muted utterances (actually, Neill did a good, "Rachel!" so just T and S are the muted utterers). I think Angi was excited enough for the entire family and nearly had a heart attack with each surprise. Needless to say, we had an excellent reunion and were able to spend the next two days with Rachel. 


And the next day was spend with most of the Powers, really (well, the U.S. Powers). The gang came over to our house at noon for fun and present opening and then we headed to the corner Italian restaurant for lunch. Then it was back to our place for games and fun and more games and more eating and a movie (Better off Dead--on VHS no less), and more games and then exhaustion around midnight. 



Sunday morning, Trevor dragged me out of bed to get ready for breakfast with Kate, Jen, and Jessica V. at the Bongo Room (Trevor's first time there, and my second). There was--shockingly--no wait out the door and onto the sidewalk (thank God since it was subzero temperatures) and we only had to hang out by the breakfast bar for about ten minutes. Then it was breakfast burritoes and BLT eggs benedict all around. We spent the rest of the day digesting. Jessica and Kate came over after breakfast to play a good few games of Catch-Phrase (while we managed to eat a few cookies...), and then Trevor and I napped before heading over to Angi and Sean's to have dinner that night (Shrimp Po' Boys!!) and watch Dark Knight and two episodes of CSIs: one in NY, one in Miami. We were hoping for the hat trick with a Vegas episode, but we'd have had to wait until two in the morning. We probably could have done it, but Angi had to work in the morning and we didn't want to keep her up wondering about forensic evidence. I think Angi, Rachel, and I could have spazzed out to television all night long while the boys talked about video games, but alas, we abstained and Trevor and I went home to a still pooped-out Henry, who was still hungover from so much company over the weekend. 

Monday we packed up the car and headed up to Door County to stay with Jim and visit with him and the Madels of Wisconsin for the week. It was chock full of action as you'll be able to tell from this day-by-day itinerary: 

Monday
Arrived around 6 p.m., ate pizza with Jim, watched television, went to sleep.

Tuesday
Drank coffee and watched movies on the couch while a family of deer and a trio of wild turkeys (animals, not pints of liquor) frolicked about outside. Found the tire of our car was flat. Had a winter adventure at Valmy Motors (tire had a near miniscule piece of metal in it, and the kind gentlemen removed it and patched up the tire for $10.). Winter adventure lasted no more than one hour. Had dinner at the Nightingale Supper Club with Jim. Came home, watched movies, went to sleep.


Wednesday
Drank coffee and watched movies on the couch while a family of deer and a trio of wild turkeys (animals, not liquor) frolicked about outside. Had New Year's Eve dinner with the Wisconsin Madels and Jim at Stone Harbor. Rung in NYC New Year with the WI Madels and Jim at 4030 Glidden drive, then Central Standard Time New Year with Jim at 4553 Glidden Drive. Went to sleep.

Thursday
New Years Day. Remained in pajamas entire day (Trevor changed into jeans at one point) while a family of deer and a trio of wild turkeys (animals, liquor) frolicked about outside. Read on couch and drank coffee. Knitted. Watched movies. Made chili for dinner and cherry pie for dessert. Read. Went to sleep. 


Friday
Drank coffee and read on couch. Went into town for breakfast/lunch, and hit the yarn store to stock up (greatest yarn store in the world: Spin). Watched movies back on the couch while a family of deer and a trio of wild turkeys (...) frolicked outside. Went to WI Madel's for shrimp curry (deeeelicous) and great conversation. Went to sleep.

Saturday
Packed up the car and came home. Ate take out from Butterfly. Read. Went to sleep. 

And that's pretty much where we come to now. We had a great time, though we did very little. Well, we did little with our bodies. I read two books, Trevor's half-way through with his (To be fair, I spent a lot more time with mine...I'm engulfed in the young adult Twilight series enough that I couldn't seem to put the books down during the week. Only one more to go!), and we exercised our minds and eyes with a bunch of movies (Severance [super-fun English horror film Trevor let me rent b/c Tootsie at Grand Slam doesn't have it], The Fall [beautiful and lovely follow-up to the interesting and just as beautiful but creepy instead of lovely The Cell], Gonzo [Hunter S. Thompson bio-documentary. Really interesting], August [interesting though not completely fullfilling Josh Hartnett movie about the dotcom bust], The King of Masks [our New Year's Eve movie--entertaining and "sentimental" (as Grandpa put it) Chinese film], and last but absolutely not least, Cannonball Run [self-explanatory I should say]).

So now it's Monday night and the larder is stocked, the house is clean, the laundry is done, Henry is still barely able to go on a real walk from all of his frolicking (he wasn't able to do any frolicking with the deer or turkeys, but he did enough on his own. see below), and we're recovering from our exhaustingly relaxing vacation. We had an excellent time, and I'm actually ready to start school next week. 

Oh Good Lord. I start school next week. 

Okay, so I'll leave you with that and some pictures of Henry our abominable snow dog. I just realized that I filled you in on everything and it's much later than I'd intended to be up. Ah, just as well. I can sleep in tomorrow now! 
Good night and Happy Belated New Year!