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!!
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