4/27: trying smoked paprika
...in peanut butter cookies. I hadn't baked cookies since December, so it was fun to make a quick batch and test the paprika addition (which I had read about online). I also added cinnamon, so the taste is overall more complicated. Too complicated? We'll see. I'm going to make a "straight" batch tomorrow to compare.
4/26: finishing my day's grading
...at school, so I didn't have to work in the evening. Instead, Chris popped some popcorn, and we watched a movie that we knew was unlikely to be good but hoped would un-good in a fun way.
4/25: 3 good things
A smooth appointment at the dentist's office.
Good final Myth classes, with a format for students' responses to one another's altered pages that worked well.
A reading and discussion of The Skull by Jon Klassen with some students. I think they all enjoyed it, and some of them very much so.
4/24: noticing
...last night that the ants are back in our walls--not a good thing. But the Terminix people were already scheduled to come this morning for a quarterly visit, so that was perfect timing, and they were really nice as I explained to them that we wanted to take care of the ants but limit the chemicals elsewhere.
4/21: preparing
...for the last week of classes: partly by reading for pleasure (to give myself some escapist relief), partly by doing another round of grading (to be as caught up as possible), and partly by making a batch of flaxseed breakfast muffins (to help me start the coming week's mornings well).
4/20: finishing
...a round of grading. I try not to do schoolwork on Saturdays, but it was a must today. The upside is that after tomorrow evening's grading I will be completely caught up as we head into the last week of classes.
4/19: hearing
...a colleague whose office is next to mine laugh as she spoke to a student we have in common. She doesn't laugh much, so it really caught my ear, and it made me smile to think that her conversation with such a nice student was delighting her on a Friday afternoon near the end of a tiring semester.
4/18: hearing
...the last of the senior presentations today. It's been nice this week to see each of them do their own thing.
4/16: smelling
...flowers in the wet air this morning. More red roses than we've ever had blooming at once, and the start of honeysuckle.
4/15: egg lemon soup
...for the third dinner in a row. We used to have it often, but then I stopped making it. I won't wait years before the next batch, but I will try a vegan version.
4/13: sipping
...a drink of iced coffee with lemonade, talking with a friend, and not thinking about some pretty big worries for 2 hours.
4/12: two
...bits of nice feedback about my teaching today. One from a student who was in a course with me last semester and called the class "joyous." Another from a student who has been taking Latin with me all year and said that they stuck with it because of the way I teach.
4/11: the second day
...in Myth class for the old reading assignment that I split into two this year. It went well. A successful experiment.
4/10: writing
...the directions for a new final project that I'm trying out for my Myth class. I'm pleased with myself for coming up with something innovative (and, hopefully, interesting), and I'll be excited to see what the students come up with.
4/9: a good decision
...to split a reading assignment from Ovid's Metamorphoses into two. It made for a better class today. It was, I think, the best first discussion day of Ovid that I've ever had.
4/8: micro and macro wonders
Chris came and got me this morning to show me hundreds of queen ants emerging from the ground, fluttering their wings, and taking flight.
And this afternoon we watched the total solar eclipse.
4/7: a big revision
...of a pamphlet I had worked on over spring break. It's very different now, and nearly done.
4/6: 2 things, 2 bags
The young man who was the cashier and bagger at the store today was really nice: he put the 2 things I purchased in 2 separate bags so that the can of apple pie filling wouldn't crush the loaf of bread. (I'm sensitive to the issue of plastic bags, but these will get reused.) And why apple pie filling and bread? So that we could try making some mountain pies in the fire pit.
4/5: in
...my hand: some twigs and leaves that a young neighbor gave me as I walked.
...the air: two bats in the spring twilight as Chris and I sat by a fire.
4/4: being relieved
...that the cards I had printed with one of my mother's costume sketches came out okay. They are for a celebration-of-life for a family friend who passed away recently and who had been in a lot of my parents' productions over the years. I thought it would be nice for attendees to get a card that showed my mother's costume design for one of his favorite roles. I was so worried that the reproduction wouldn't turn out well (and had been waiting nervously for the package to arrive), but the cards look really nice. Whew.
4/3: reading
...some of Sophus Helle's translation of Enheduana then mentioning it to a student who I thought would be interested. The student immediately said that they might get Helle's book for themself as an end-of-semester treat, which made me smile because (though they didn't know it) I had ordered a copy of the book for myself with the thought that it would be my own end-of-semester treat.
4/2: remembering
...that I had some meclizine in my bookbag just in case. Today was an "in case" day.
4/1: coinciding
...with Chris in my walk to the parking lot at the end of the day. Usually we leave school at different times, but not today. Before we crossed the street to our cars, we paused to admire the dogwoods flowering on campus.
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