Photo Meme

So I tried to do a photo meme some time ago, but got extremely frustrated with formatting issues. Here comes Madame Meow, with this lovely and easy idea. So charming! And here you go, me in a nutshell, or, um, a photomosaic...

Here are the instructions if you so wish to do this in your own blog (or just for fun):

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

_____________

1. What is your first name? Doctor
2. What is your favorite food? Grilled salmon, currently
3. What high school did you go to? NMHS
4. What is your favorite color? yellow
5. Who is your celebrity crush? George Clooney
6. Favorite drink? Raspberry Mojito
7. Dream vacation? Backpacking across Europe
8. Favorite dessert? Pecan pie
9. What you want to be when you grow up? My mother
10. What do you love most in life? The woods
11. One Word to describe you. Dependable
12. Your flickr name. Bad Ass Turtle

Thank you to the following Flickr people:

1. French Doctor Who Poster, 2. Grilled salmon, 3. north mesquite HS, 4. A quest for the most perfect yellow yarn..., 5. George Clooney in Dolce e Cabbana, 6. raspberry mojito..., 7. Vienna, Austria, 8. Pecan pie., 9. My Mother: 25th Anniversary Tribute (2006) by Stephen B Whatley, 10. A Stream in the Woods, 11. Elderly, yet Dependable, 12. Bad-Ass Turtle

Bad Ass's Mom

Oooh! I will never say another bad thing about the department here that administers our online courses. Cause my mom? She's gonna be in my class! I'm teaching an online course this summer, on a topic that interests mom, and she's going to audit the class. Should be fun! Did I mention that my mom got her bachelor's degree in literature when she was in her 60s? She's the coolest of the cool kids.

Hi Mom!!

Registration Woes

Now that I've been at home for most of the last week, coughing up a lung or two, I've had some time to devote to my online courses. I'm teaching a graduate course this semester, with a fairly small enrollment. The course was originally designed for a combination of intensive weekends (Friday evenings/Saturday all day) and online discussion, but I switched it to online because of the low enrollment, after which point the enrollment tripled. Interesting dynamic there. I'm having to put it together on the fly, which means I'm just about two weeks ahead of the class.

One of the techniques I'm using for this course is mini-lectures (voice over on powerpoint) that I record using Camtasia. The process of designing those has been interesting. Usually, I choose a topic that is related to the material in the assigned texts, or one that is only given a small amount of play in those chapters, and provide information on those topics. Only about 15-20 minutes per mini-lecture. I create a powerpoint, write notes underneath, and then record the lecture. Easy.

So now I've had a bit more time -- because of the coughing -- to work on my summer online course, which is on Literature for Young Adults. I teach this course regularly during the school year; this will be my first time teaching it online and my first time teaching it in the summer. It's a lot of work getting the course online, but I think I'll be getting some extra money for the course development (!).

So my beef is that -- because this course is also offered as a graduate course for teachers in the state who are in our literacy endorsement program -- registration is done through our off-campus enrichment program. That's fine, I have no problem with them doing the registration. But. The course doesn't show up in our registration system until the around-the-state folks (who register as graduate students) can register -- not until the end of next month. This makes sense, I guess, because we don't want the class to fill up with undergraduate students before the graduate students get a chance to register.

But the bottom line is that undergraduates are calling me and emailing me, all panicked because the course doesn't show up! And they can't enroll! Is it full? Would I please let them add the class? Because they are graduating in May and this is their only chance for an upper-division course, and if they can't take it the world will end!

Sheesh.

Some Cool Things I Discovered Over the Break

1. Mozilla Firefox. I know. I should have discovered this a long time ago, but I didn't. I like it better than IE, though it doesn't work well for my E-Companion course author page.

2. IPod and Itunes. Footslogger bought me a Nano for Chrismas, and I luuurrrvve it. With a sloppy kind of love that makes me salivate over choosing new music and games, etc.

3. Watching tv online. I've already posted about that one, but let me repeat how cool it is to be able to watch tv shows online with a minimum of commercials.

4. Sleeping late. I can't stop doing it.

5. Starting my car remotely. Footslogger also bought me one of these for Christmas, and it's heavenly. I just point my little keychain remote toward my car, parked in the icy driveway or in the icy parking lot (wherever it is parked, there is PLENTY of ice these days). The car starts, warms up, and runs for 12 minutes. It's locked, so when I go out, I just unlock it, turn my key to On, hit the brake, and I'm good to go. Perfect.

5. Paperback swap. I post books I want to get rid of (paperbacks, of course). If someone chooses my book and I mail it to them, I get a point that I can use to choose someone else's book, which they will mail to me. This has ramped up my huge pile of To-Be-Read books exponentially.

6. Clipmarks. Makes it easy to blog about stuff I find online.

I'm sure there are more, but I just can't remember anything right now. I obviously spent too much time online during the break, and it's showing in terms of my lack of readiness for classes this semester.