I don't know...

... which is worse:

Spending most of Saturday at a football game in which my team was annihilated?

Or spending most of Sunday getting ready for the week to come?

It should be a crazy week, with traveling twice to Capitol City, meetings and courses galore, and a great big ginormous dissertation to read by Friday. So....

Back to work.

A weekend at home. A chance to get caught up, watch some horrible (High Plains U) and great (Southeast Doc School) football, baking, household chores, and.... um... thinking about grading.

Laundry? Check.
Dishes? Check.
Mow the yard (hopefully for the last time, as there is snow predicted for this week)? Check.
Grading? Not. Even Close.

So, Friday was my first exam in sedimentology/stratigraphy. I would say that I prepped well for the exam -- I read all four chapters, didn't miss a day of class or lab, took good notes, downloaded the powerpoints, made index cards of the important points, and spent about 2 hours just studying the index cards. I think I did pretty well on the exam, although I was surprised by the design of it. I had expected multiple choice questions, which would be much easier to grade (though harder to design). The test was almost all short answer, drawing diagrams, definitions, etc. Lots of writing, and I was just able to get it finished in the 50-minute time period of the class. I had memorized the formulas for things like the Reynolds number, the Froude number (dimensionless numbers designed to differentiate between levels of flow). I didn't write the formulas down as part of the definitions, and after I left the exam I thought perhaps I should have. But I did indicate in my definitions what the controlling factors of each formula were.... so perhaps that will be good enough.

I do feel like what we're doing in lab is definitely helping me understand the content of the course. And so far, that seems to be fairly unusual!

I've also decided to write a sabbatical leave proposal for a one-semester gig during spring of 2011. That will be when I'll be finishing up my current two-year study, and I hope that I'll be able to devote a considerable amount of time to analyzing data and writing manuscripts. Sabbatical leave proposals are due at the end of the month -- writing mine should be fairly easy since I have a good description of my research project in my grant application.

In other -- more interesting!-- news, Roxy has now completed half of her first obedience classes. She's doing quite well at learning the commands we are working on, and managing to control -- most of the time -- her excitement about being around other dogs! and people! during the classes! This morning she ran around the back yard, apparently stepped in poop, and promptly jumped on top of our new bedspread to share her fragrance. Slogger gave her a bath, and I did poop patrol just before starting with the mowing.

Now it's off for a shower and a shopping trip -- I have some unspent gift cards that are waiting patiently to be used.

First Week Report

So, it's finally Saturday. I've got water running on the lawn (I've neglected my watering duties for school and now the grass is looking decidedly brown and crinkly), Slogger and Roxy are still sleeping, and this is a good time for me to write.

I can't remember if I wrote about this last fall, but I was decidedly unhappy with one of my classes in particular last year. There was grumpiness, there was lack of enthusiasm, there was downright anger -- and that was coming from both a group of my students and from me. I've worked hard leading up to the beginning of fall semester to have a positive attitude toward my teaching, my students, myself, and my class and I believe that is paying off. I'm encouraged about the positive vibes and interest I'm sensing, particularly from my group of seniors and postbac students. It helps, of course, that I had several in a course last spring that went particularly well. So, unlike last fall when I was already counting down the semester ("ok, just 14 weeks to go. Sigh."), I'm looking forward to next week and to seeing my students again. Of course, I completely changed my textbook, so that means I have shitloads of work to do to get ready for class, but... that's par for the course, isn't it?

My new grad assistant (I'm still working on a name for her) is working out well too. She's co-teaching my junior level class with me, and will be taking over that junior-level class next year so I can teach a doctoral course in our new doc program (yeah! new doc program!). Of course, it's going to take a bit of time for students to get comfortable with her -- about half of the students in this class have either had a class with me before or are my advisees, so they know me better than they know her. We're going to work harder this week, now that she's a bit more comfortable, on giving her meatier portions of the course to run herself.

I got my official letter this week saying we are now journal editors (Woot!). And on Friday I was able to make some solid progress on lining up interviews for my new (lightly funded) research project. All of that makes me happy.

Now, Slogger threw his back out, and he's gotten started on CPAP for his sleep apnea, and all of that is taking a bit of adjustment on his part. So things are not happy in Slogger-world at the moment, but we both believe that will just be a matter of time.

Today I have a ton of reading to do, Roxy has her first day of obedience classes (we're hoping she will be the star of the show!) and I want to make and freeze some pesto, using the lovely pesto I bought at the farmer's market yesterday. I'm looking forward to a pleasant weekend, and hoping to go camping next weekend....

Overall, calm is a good place to be.

Lovely, Peaceful Weekend (and a new roof)

The roofers arrived on Friday and made loads of noise shoveling the three layers of previous roofs off the house. I was able to avoid most of it by heading in to the office to work on yet another version of a program report (gah), but poor Slogger and Roxy were home for a whole day's worth. And they stayed Friday night until around 8:15! And were back Saturday morning at 7:15 AM.

Howsomeever, we had a lovely surprise for Slogger on his birthday, which was Saturday. Slogger's daughter (City Girl) flew in to Big Western City, rented a car, and drove to High Plains City to spend a day with her daddy for his big birthday. I wish you could have seen the extremely stunned and surprised and delighted look on his face when City Girl drove up in her fancy red rental Chevy. I WISH I had had a camera, because that expression was truly priceless.

So on our block at that time, there were the following events taking place:

• roofers hammering away on our house, plus their compressor roaring
• a very popular yard sale at the house next door
• a garden tour taking place across the street (which meant people parking and walking all along our street)
• City Girl showing up

Needless to say, it was a bit crazed. Soon after City Girl arrived, we packed up and headed for the local park, where we spread a couple of blankets, drank some Snapple, and just got lazy for several hours. Yours truly went to a nearby deli and got sandwiches, so lunch was easy. It was a sunny, but cool day, so hanging out in the shade, with a bit of sun, was nice. And peaceful. And happy, with City Girl there to show her daddy that she loves him very much. Which also makes me very happy.

Around about 4, we headed home, and the roofers were gone, and the roof was finished. Peace. Quiet. And a new roof!

We grilled salmon and corn-on-the-cob, drank a couple of glasses of chenin blanc, had a nice ice cream cake for Slogger's birthday, and had a good night's sleep. Then on Sunday we drove up to the mountains to check out our camping site for August (which was a good thing, as it was almost completely encompassed by a snow bank, and we had to change to a different site), have a picnic lunch, and generally enjoy being up in the cool mountain air.

Then City Girl had to leave to make it back for her flight. This engendered a few tears, but they are tears of love, which makes them good.

Now it's 8:15 AM and we're still in bed.... can I just say that I'm SO happy that Slogger retired?

Off to get some breakfast and the office for me. My goal for the day is to get a complete draft of the program report finished.

I'm hoping that your weekend was as lovely; or if not, that you have some peace to look forward to!

NaBloPoMo '08 #15:

Today was a pretty low-key day for us. I think I stayed in my pjs until about 3,and then we drove over to the animal shelter to visit the dogs and cats, but not to bring any home yet. There were a couple of beautiful border collie mixes, but there's also a mother with a litter of tiny pups -- Slogger is thinking about adopting one of the pups once they are old enough. Breed? Rottweiler. They're big and powerful, but if we bring one up from a puppy, we can work some Dog Whisperer magic on it. The puppies should be old enough after Christmas, so I'll keep you all informed on any dog stuff...

After we got back home, I cleaned out the refrigerator. Yes, that's the kind of fun stuff I like to do on a Saturday night. But then we went to the last home volleyball game, which we won!

NaBloPoMo '08 #1: No-Football Saturday

Normally, I like college football. Not as much as basketball, mind you, but it's ok. Slogger and I have season tickets to the football games, and normally I would go. But today? Today is a day for grading and cooking and laundry. I've got the crockpot chicken already slowly cooking, the second load is in the washer, and that brings me to my third event of the day:

Grading.

Today, I am planning to work through 14 sets of poetry that my students handed in last Tuesday. I know I should have graded more between then and now, but what can I say? I just didn't get to it. It's actually a fairly simple procedure, and more one of responding than of grading. I just read through their three poems, check to see that they have sufficient peer feedback and multiple drafts, read their reflection letters, and assign a letter grade. Then I record verbal feedback on strengths and possible revisions they might want to make, post them on the website, and go on to the next. I've been doing this audio feedback thing for a while now, and I have to say that I'm pleased with it. At least some of my students like it -- the ones who don't haven't been too loud. I believe that I can be clearer with my feedback, and it seems that my students get more clarity on what they need to work on as well. I wish I could do this with reviewing for journals!

And then I've also got some sets of smaller assignments to grade -- reading responses and the like -- which I will probably do while watching a football game on television.

Good news on the basketball front, because the women's season begins next Tuesday. And really, women's basketball is SOOOO much more fun to watch than men's. I've always liked women's basketball better, since I started teaching high school in California and was the 30-second clock keeper for our women's team. I think that women's teams tend to do team play more than individual, and that's the kind of sport I like to watch.

With the first game being election night, I wonder if they will announce election results at the game? Or ignore it alltogether?