10/31: hearing people
...at my "Origami, Etymology, and Bats" workshop be excited about words and word histories.
10/30: getting some reassurance
...about my eye. I had a sudden PVD (posterior vitreous detachment) episode during my afternoon class yesterday, and I got an emergency appointment today to have it looked at. Right now it doesn't seem like it's connected to anything worse (like a tear), but I'll have a follow-up in a few weeks. In the meanwhile, it's quite an adjustment to get used to disrupted vision, as if I'm looking through a dirty window all the time. Still, I'm grateful that it's only that adjustment that I'm needing to deal with.
10/29: showing
...my pamphlets to the students in a letterpress class at work. They were so amazingly nice and thoughtful.
10/28: writing
...a quick postcard reply to a friend who had asked me what I've been reading recently.
10/27: finally
....writing a recommendation letter for an excellent former student. There was nothing about the task itself that made me put it off until near the due-date, just busy-ness with other things with closer due-dates. But I wanted to get it submitted before the end of the weekend, so I sat down after dinner and did it. It was good to have some dedicated time to remember this student and all her wonderful work.
10/25: writing
...an unpleasant letter that I wasn't expecting to have to write. Not a good thing, but getting it done before I go to bed is. Now it's not something to wake up to.
And other folks writing in support of what I wrote about in the unpleasant letter.
10/24: enjoying thoughts
...as I prepared for my upper-level Latin class, and again enjoying thoughts--my own, my students', ours together--as I taught the class.
10/22: being
...a little loopy in Beginning Latin (and I think the students actually enjoyed that?).
10/21: sending
...the difficult documents (mentioned yesterday) by email this afternoon, a few hours earlier than I expected. It was good to make myself send them so that I wouldn't keep fussing over them.
Also, on a more wholly happy note, I got some origami bats ready for Halloween mailing.
10/20: writing
...difficult documents in support of the Classics program at the college where I work. That I had to write them at all (and especially over what was supposed to be a break) isn't a great thing, but it's good to have them done and nearly ready to send tomorrow.
10/19: a good round
...of flashcard-making from my students. I've been checking them over the past few days, and one student even drew little pictures on many of them to aid memorization!
10/18: seeing
...the comet (though hazily). And remembering that I had seen deer while driving to and from work earlier in the week. I meant to make deer-sighting a good thing then, but I forgot, so better late than never.
10/17: working at home
...because it's fall break. I had hoped to be able to have a day or two of no work at all, but that wasn't in the cards. At least I can work in comfy clothes, with Chris and the cats nearby, and have the chance to mix in a few other things, like a morning walk and an afternoon break to make a peanut butter pie.
10/15: making a poster
...for an event on campus later this month, and finding a really good bat graphic to use.
10/14: chopping
...vegetables for lentil soup. It took time that in some ways I didn't have (or shouldn't have spent in such a way), but I needed to do something like that--not schoolwork, with my hands, and aimed at making dinners easier for a few days.
10/13: the gift of insomnia
...helped me to get my grading done by 8 am this morning. I woke up around 1:45 and couldn't go back to sleep. After trying for over an hour, I got up and got to work. The unexpected early start meant that I had time to fit in a morning walk as well as work on my other tasks (grocering, prepping for tomorrow, doing laundry) without anxiety. But now I am very tired so I am going to bed where (I hope) I won't have insomnia tonight.
10/12: taking quick breaks
...from grading a pile of writing assignments by folding origami bats for Halloween. I'd set myself a goal, knowing that when I reached it I'd get to fold another bat. And it worked nicely as a motivation and reward.
10/11: a trio
A colleague I rarely see came by with apple/honey themed treats.
I offered my Origami + Epic artist's book workshop again, and it went swimmingly.
10/10: some notable things
As part of my lunch break at work I learned how to fold a fairly (for me) elaborate origami tato or envelope. (The video I used is here.)
In my upper-level Latin class, the students did some very good careful analysis of Liz Clarke's graphic novel of Perpetua's prison diary.
I watched the sky go magenta with the Northern Lights, and Chris watched for awhile with me too. I texted my mother (in PA, where they were more visible) and a friend here (whose niece and nephew are visiting, so I thought they might like to see it).
Later, Chris let me know that owls were hooting. He hooted at them, and they hooted back.
Plus I saw a bat.
10/9: talking about age
...in The Titan's Curse in class today. I didn't plan for it to emerge as a theme as much as it did--and I'm glad it did.
10/8: joining
...Chris' tree walk with his students this morning. I didn't mean to. I was walking on campus to put up posters for an event, and I ran into Chris with his group, so I tagged along for a bit since we were going in the same direction.
10/7: enjoying
...reading my students' posts about Riordan's wordcraft in The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters.
10/6: thinking
...about this year's holiday card and working on some possibilities so that I don't get stressed next month when it's time to settle on a choice and order prints.
10/5: returning
...to a "no-schoolwork Saturday." I really needed a break from it today, even though there's more than plenty to do. I walked, collaged, read, watched TV with Chris, listened to an audiobook, and wrote some postcards and notes.
10/4: doing
...my own assignments so that students have examples of responses. This way they get to see one possible way of going about it, and I get to find out what the assignment feels like from the other end. As they worked on their in-class writing today, I enjoyed putting together my sample responses for an assignment due on Monday.
10/3: an email
...from a student who had a very creative idea for participating in my ongoing altering epics project.
10/2: recovering time
...since my school laptop got replaced. Its cursor had started jumping around: I'd be typing a sentence, and then all of a sudden my cursor would be in the middle of a sentence I had already typed 5 lines ago. Everything basically needed to get typed 2 or 3 times, and I needed to do a lot of proofreading to make sure I caught all the glitches. Now that the jumping cursor is no longer part of my life, I'm surprised at how quickly typing goes.
10/1: chatting
...with a student before his quiz and seeing him smile when I mentioned that I went to the same college that his sister is graduating from this year. We had some common ground.
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