11/30: before lunch

I had to run out to buy an additional goody to slip into a birthday package for a friend; I got up early (well, early for me on a Sunday) and made it to the store and back while most other folks were in church or bed.  Then I got the package ready to ship and readied two other packages for a trip to the post office tomorrow.

11/29: before november's end

I had set the end of November as my deadline for finishing some chapbook binding, and this evening I met it.

11/28: dried grasses for a photographic bouquet

Chris often walks in the farm fields below our house, but he usually does so early (very early!) in the morning, so I don't join him.  This afternoon, however, we went together.  Lots of dried grasses and things going to seed.  It couldn't help but remind me of the Thanksgiving bouquets my parents would gather and arrange for the house each autumn.

11/27: cobbler

Last year we realized that what we most wanted to make for Thanksgiving was cobbler and we decided to make only that.  This year we chose to go the same route, perhaps transforming last year's lark into a tradition.

11/26: a handful

Getting to sleep in a little bit.

Buying groceries with Chris for tomorrow's cobbler, and getting other goodies in the process.

Playing with the cats.

Listening to A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd while sweeping the floors.

Taking pictures at Woolly Hollow and down at the dock.  Here's one from Woolly Hollow:

11/25: work, but less hectic

It was the last day of work before a long weekend, and a good number of students, faculty, and staff had already left for the holiday.  I had a quiet and calm but productive Greek class and then a few afternoon meetings with students--a nice way to ease into a little break.

11/24: music slipped in

I made a late-in-the-day decision to go to the college orchestra's concert this evening.  I had never heard Steven Gerber's Spirituals before, and I'm glad I now have.  I'm especially grateful to have heard his "Homage to Ravel" (inspired by "There is a Balm in Gilead").

11/23: rainy day outing

We were a bit stir-crazy by this afternoon, so even though we weren't feeling 100% we took a drive out to Wolly Hollow.

11/22: marathon

Chris had a bad migraine today and in solidarity I watched lots of episodes of The West Wing on Netflix with him.

11/21: wrapping up

My part of the utopia course ended today.  We still have some team-taught and workshop sessions after Thanksgiving break, but I've now taken two groups of students through what I wanted them to read, experience, and think about, and that feels good.

11/20: 8 hours

...of sleep...on a school night...rare.

11/19: high-tops

I wore my honey-colored Converse high-tops to school today; they make me smile.  One of my students said that she especially liked them; they made her smile too.

11/18: confirming a choice

I've been second-guessing (and third-guessing) my decision to end my part of the utopia course with David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy, which isn't as straightforwardly in the utopian tradition as the other works we've read.  In the course of thinking about (and doubting) my decision I ended up having some nice thoughts about the utopian tradition in general as well as the particular texts we've read in the course.  And re-reading Boy Meets Boy this evening made me feel like it really was a good choice.  There are vexatious things about the novel, but it's a good one for the course and especially good as the last one they read with me.

11/17: a collection

Lovely-looking snow upon awaking, but it didn't beset the roads (hurray) so getting to school wasn't a trouble.

My cold (or whatever it is) isn't gone so I left school after teaching my classes.  Chris left at the same time and we were able to do some grocering together before heading home.

After some time resting I was able to muster myself to do some reading of scholarly articles and students' summaries of them.  One student chose an essay on metamorphoses and metaphor in Christine de Pizan and the Ovide Moralisé which was a fun work-out.

And how nice to log in here at the end of my day and see in my feed updates from two other bloggers who post good things:  Ruth (at Five Things) and Meri (at Count to 3).  I love their windows into their days and thoughts.

11/16: two at the end of the day

Between 8:30 and 9:30 this evening the rain changed to snow, the first of the season.  I held my hand out the door and felt it fall, ever so light, on my hand.

And then I checked my email to find thank-you notes from the two poets whose joint chapbook I've been binding.  I had sent them their first installment of books this week, and their kind words are making me eager to finish the second installment.  It's a winter-themed chapbook, so this evening's weather reminds me how timely it is.

11/15: quiet

Feeling under the weather, I spent the day quietly.  I am grateful that I managed to get caught up(-ish) on my work during the past week so a day of not working doesn't create stress.

11/14: going slower with greek

Last week I decided that in my beginning Greek class we'd finish one less chapter this semester than originally planned.  Today I'm feeling the goodness of the decision:  it's made this busy time of the semester feel less packed, and it's allowed the students to consolidate and more fully process what we've been learning (especially certain new rules about vowel contractions and how they play out in some verbs, nouns, and adjectives).

11/13: good reading

Some of my students are doing research projects this semester, and they have to write summaries of academic articles they've found on their own which are related to their research topics.  Which means that I have to read the articles, too.  They've been choosing interesting ones, and it's been a pleasure to read them.

11/12: less than 10 minutes

November is a nutty month at work and sometimes it's hard to calm down, and more often than sometimes it's hard to find time to do anything except work.  Today I stopped at the pier on my drive to campus.  The air was cold but the sun was warm and bright, and I had my camera.  I took pictures, enjoyed being outside, and relaxed.  It was less than a 10 minute delay to my work-day, yet it did more than 10 minutes worth of good.

11/11: ovid

Oh, the pleasure of translating Ovid's story of Narcissus today.  First the pleasure of doing so alone, in my office while preparing for class.  Then the pleasure of going through it with the students and seeing them enjoy Ovid's wordplay.

11/10: thanks to chris again

Unbeknownst to me, Chris stopped at the store on his way home to buy fresh bread and nice cheese for a sandwich dinner.

11/9: thanks to chris

I went down to the lake for a quick visit in the afternoon so I almost didn't go down for sunset.  But then Chris said that we should go, so I did.  And I was glad!

Any one of these views would have made my day.  To get them all in one 30 minute stretch--amazing.

11/8: gettting better

More chapbook-binding this weekend, and I'm getting better at the process.  Virtually no mistakes or re-dos today.

11/7: their success

One of my friends at work is putting on a challenging play this week, Timberlake Wertenbaker's Love of the Nightingale.  Since the play is based on a story told by Ovid, my friend had asked me to come and talk with the cast last month, and last week I also watched a full rehearsal.  Tonight I saw the finished show.  They did it.  Lots of aesthetic, emotional, and social complexities to navigate, and--wow--they did it.

11/6: encouragement

I had to give a presentation at work today.  As I was talking it was nice to see some colleagues' smiling faces in the audience, and afterward a colleague I don't know very well was enthusiastic.

11/5: disco tray

The trays in our school cafeteria are mostly green, but a few of them are cream-colored and gold-flecked.  These are affectionately known as "disco trays," and they are considered good luck.  You're not supposed to go hunting for one; you just have to see if one happens to be on the top of the pile for you to take when you pass by.  Today at dinner a disco tray was mine.

11/4: deciding

It's always hard, when I'm feeling unwell, to decide whether or not I should cancel class.  I second-guess, third-guess, fourth-guess myself--and in the end I usually don't cancel.  Today, though, I wasn't feeling right and I didn't draw out the decision-making:  I opted to go in for the morning but leave after Greek, giving the afternoon Latin students a group assignment.  It was a good thing to do.

11/3: over breakfast

I paged through The Persephone Biannually while drinking my coffee.  A nice way to wake up:  seeing books that I know I want to read and realizing how many of Persephone's offerings I've managed to read during the past few years.

11/2: peppers

Chris brought back some canned goodies from his fall break visit to his cousin's house.  The canned peppers tasted especially good with tonight's dinner.

11/1: of a different sort

Today I did work other than class prep:  some chapbook-binding preliminaries (printing and cutting, with the hope of doing actual binding next weekend) and reading a few chapters of Trollope's Three Clerks (which has some good uses of Classics, and I hope to gloss it with a student or two this spring).  It was a work day, but it was also a reminder that I enjoy my work.