the joy of teaching

that's the title of the book i had to buy for my teaching class this semester. it sounds super cheesy and lame. (and the book is kind of lame.) but i am seriously understanding the idea behind it right now.

today was my students' peer review day, where they had to have a rough draft in class, exchange with a partner, answer the questions i asked them about their peer's draft, and then discuss their comments with their partner. peer review is something that NOBODY likes, but it really can be useful and helpful, if you're doing it right. i've struggled with getting my students interested in it, both last semester while i was TAing and this semester the first time around. but today was FANTASTIC! they sat and seriously made comments, working for half an hour, and then held real, long, detailed conversations about their papers with their partners.

i thought i would just jump for joy. it was amazing. i have no idea what i did or why it worked this time (or really, how substantial or helpful their comments actually were), but just the fact of their engagement in the process made me SO HAPPY. i wanted to give them all a hug as they walked out of the room.

i don't know if i'm just really lucky or if i just don't know about the impending dangers ahead, but i feel like i've got a really great bunch of students this semester. they're way better than the students i was TAing last semester and they all try so hard! they ask if they can go to the bathroom during class and send me cute emails saying things like "i'm so sorry that i missed class this morning. i know this is a bad excuse but my alarm clock didn't go off. i just wanted to let you know out of courtesy." obviously some of them are hanging out on the computer during class but most of them pay attention, participate, and a few of them even laugh at my jokes.

i don't know if they actually like me or my class but i really like them. and i love teaching! the only hard thing is just grading those papers and having to give some of them C's.

balance

i've started doing the whole charting-out-every-hour-of-my-week-thing again, which means you know things are getting hectic round here. midterms. papers. grading. capstone project. looming.

so this is one of my goals. tight-rope walking.

oh yeah, and balancing my mental state and re-prioritizing my life. (again, as usual.)

any suggestions?

5 good things right now

weekend!

teaching and planning for teaching

costco veggie straws

endless amounts of reading material

running

1 bad thing right now:

group papers (with non-native english speakers)

fall

fall surprised us this year.

last thursday, it was probably around 85 degrees and humid, like it's been all summer. and then on friday, overnight, it dropped about 20 degrees and rained all weekend. i walked outside and realized that i might need a coat. and just like that, it was fall.

i love fall as much as anyone else in the world, and i'm not the world's biggest fan of the southern humidity and heat that we've been existing in all summer. but i do hate the transition back to coat weather that comes along with fall--i don't want to have to lug a jacket around everywhere i go. and i'm already regretting the shorter days and earlier nights that are on their way--every afternoon i am shocked when i see how early it still is compared to the sunset outside. i want it to stay light until 8:45 still! don't get dark so early!

i LOVED this summer and i don't want it to die. but it'll be back next year, with all of its humidity and bug bites and cockroaches that will make me wish for fall to come . . . and so it always goes. i'll be more resigned to the seasons changing once the leaves outside our windows start changing colors again.

oh, yes. i do love fall.

hairspray

all i have to say is--if you don't love this movie we shouldn't be friends. i just re-watched it and remembered all over again how absolutely amazing it all is. and this is the most absolutely amazing part of it all:

YOU CAN'T STOP THE BEAT.

TGIF

oh fridays, how i love you! what a great day today has been--i taught class, graded eight papers, went to lunch at a fantastic greek restaurant with tommy (thank you groupon now coupon!), went to kroger and costco, made chocolate chip cookie oreo brownie bars (yes, seriously, oh my gosh), and am now planning on reading some fun stuff and eventually going to visit tommy where he's camping out at duke to get his season tickets again.

is it just me, or does anyone else get excited about having errands to do? they make me feel like i'm a regular human being, not just a student-robot like i usually am. and they're a diversion from the regular homework that i'm always doing. i couldn't wait to go to the grocery store today. we got a chip in our windshield and i'm actually looking forward to finding someone to fill it.

okay, yes, i have a sad life. i'll admit it.

speaking of which, the other day, tommy and i were having our usual conversation about how we're so boring and don't have any hobbies. and he said that i do have a hobby: this blog.

even more proof of my sad life. THIS IS MY HOBBY? thanks, hubby. although, even worse, i guess he's right.

anyways, hasta la vista, baby.

hello, mr. president!

today was a special day: a day in the middle of the week where tommy and i got absolutely no work done!

no wait, it was more than that. barack obama came and spoke at nc state and i stood in line for a few hours yesterday to get two tickets, so tommy and i both got to go hear him. i figured that it was a rare opportunity to have the president come speak at your school while you're a student there, so it was worth the hours of waiting. go wolfpack!

(yes, we were sitting behind him. but we actually had really decent seats, although you can't tell with this sad horribly-zooming-in camera that we have. we were sitting with a friend who said he'd send us his much better pictures, which i'll share with you if i ever get them!)

obama came to talk about his new american jobs act that he recently came up with. and i must say, it was really interesting listening to his speech as an english teacher who's been talking about rhetoric the first few weeks of class. i was taking notes the whole time, writing things down i could talk with my students about his use of rhetoric and his reaching out to his audience, etc. it was awesome.

my opinions on the job act: i have no idea if the dang thing will work. i'm not an economist, and i don't understand how recessions and unemployment problems get solved. both parties say the EXACT SAME THING--"this act will/will not give people their jobs back! the american people deserve to have jobs! we need to get congress/the president to do something to make more jobs!"--which makes everything convoluted. and nobody KNOWS what type of legislation is going to work to fix this economy anyways. so i refuse to have an opinion on economic stuff because i just do not understand it.

(he did say something i don't necessarily agree with though--he said there was something in the bill that would make companies hire people who had been unemployed for more than six months. not sure how that's going to work, or why that's going to solve the depression, when that just means someone else will be unemployed longer. and also, why not just have people hire the most qualified people that apply for the job?)

but heck--it was really cool to hear and see him in person! look at the lucky people who got to shake his hand!

another tidbit to prove how charming nc state is: in the fight song (which i heard today for the first time--i don't have much school spirit) are the words "Go to hell, Carolina." (duke fans say the same thing. apparently we're not big unc fans around these parts.)

best movie ever

do you want to see little tommy when he was a freshman eight years ago?



doesn't this just seem like such a total byu dorm activity? it makes me think of austin in the dorms right now... probably doing this same thing.

and the great thing is, he later lived with and is still friends with most of the guys in this scene. oh, the awesomeness.

THANK YOU jimi for sharing this.

don't worry, graduation's still more than 250 days away

i've entertained myself the last few days by making post-graduation summer plans. like, those long-lost goals that you always make and never actually have time to do. since right now my only idea of what i'll be doing after i graduation is a giant question mark (will i even be able to find a job teaching? etc.) and also especially since tommy is planning on doing an internship next summer, during which i will most certainly have nothing to do, i've started thinking about things to keep me busy.

these are all pretty long-term projects, but so far this is what i've come up with:

-road trip to new england! my graduation trip is going to be to visit boston/maine/upstate new york (ithaca!)--tommy and i decided this a year ago. this all depends on said internship, of course, but i can cross my fingers.

-taking classes at durham tech, the local community college--they offer photography, cooking, indesign/photoshop, a couples' massage class . . . i'm more excited about taking these than any of my school classes! (once we get back to durham, of course)

-brushing up on my indesign skillz* by compiling recipes into a cookbook (for my own use) and by making this blog into a book for posterity's sake

-making photo books of the pictures of the last few years (haven't settled on printing out the photos or using shutterfly to make an online book--i know the latter is easier but i just love having hard copies of photos)

-interviewing my g-parents and transcribe/edit their interviews, again for posterity's sake. also, finally getting around to helping them edit their already-written personal histories.

-taking piano lessons again

like i said, long-term goals. does anyone have any suggestions for me? i'm looking for ideas. it's more fun than working on the annotated bibliography i'm procrastinating.

*(i honestly cannot write skillz with an s any more. it comes from jokes with my roommates back in the day and i can't break the habit. and i love it. how annoying is that?)