May 07, 2008
Here and Away
I've answered emails and addressed last-minute grade-related worries.
I've cried in front of my students as I tried to find the words to thank them for being such wonderful human beings.
I've hugged so many people, listened to their summer plans and said good-bye to those who aren't returning.
I've fixed a glitch in the attendance records for one class.
I've graded everything and submitted final grades.
And now I am going away. Two glorious days on the Pacific Coast, sandwiched between two days of driving. And if it's open, I'll be stopping at Maryhill. Because it's packed with Rodins, and I cannot get enough of that man's work. I've always meant to visit the museum, and this trip would be a good opportunity to do just that.
Anyway, what with two days of driving and two days of R&R, I won't be taking the laptop. So don't expect to hear from me again until Monday evening at the latest (all day faculty meeting on Monday), though I might post Sunday, depending on when I get home.
Have a lovely weekend. I fully intend to.
Posted by sally at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2008
Still Here
It feels like I've lived a week in the past few days. Sunday was relaxing but busy--all stuff I wanted to do, mind you. I took the entire weekend off from the teaching thing. Didn't even check my email until yesterday morning.
Yesterday, on the other hand, was crazy. The day began with a 7:30am final and ended when I got home sometime around 6:30. I got a bunch of grading done, fit in a brunch/discussion about this semester and next semester with my teaching partner, actually proctored/participated in two finals and then collapsed. I wanted to do something creative and interesting with my evening, as a break from the school stuff, but I was too tired to think of anything. So I read. And talked to my brother on the phone for about an hour because he's in the area on a shoot. Hopefully I'll get to see him this evening.
Today is completely up to me. I have no commitments to anyone, no solid ones, anyway. I do have about 30 final exams to grade and a handful of papers that got turned in on Friday. And that's it. I also need to do some shopping and make reservations for a trip to the coast this weekend, I leave Thursday for three glorious days of being both not here and at the ocean. No responsibilities, no schedule. I'm hoping that will get me set up nicely to come home and start doing the huge amount of stuff I need to do this summer. Because, wow, do I have a lot to do before classes start again in the fall and my free time goes away.
I was actually thinking about not going because the preparation seems like so much work. I need to rent a car because ours will most likely be in the shop and it's a long drive and I'm not sure how I feel about going all that way alone to be alone, etc., and mostly because the weather on the coast is looking not so happy. Rainy and chilly. And then I looked at the forecast for here, and realized that it will actually be slightly nicer on the coast this weekend. Warmer by 5-10 degrees. So I'll be leaving first thing Thursday morning.
And now I'm off. Walking to campus because the weather is gorgeous and my schedule is open and I can. Grading, making photocopies and doing some more grading. Hopefully I'll be able to get all the stuff that needs doing done by mid-afternoon or so. I really don't want to spend the rest of my life grading, and I'm not sure I have the patience to do much more of it, really. Though the finals had several questions that involved making art and then examining/explaining the impulse behind it, so they should be fun to grade rather than work. I'd like to get it all done before I leave on Thursday, even though grades aren't due until a week from today. I just want it out of the way so I'm not thinking about it the whole time I'm gone. The whole point of the trip, after all, is to get away and focus on taking care of me and to maybe wash the sticky residue from the semester off in the surf.
Posted by sally at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2008
Comments: Issues **UPdated**
I just heard from a frustrated commenter that for some reason my comments are shutting people down. I have no idea why, but I'm sorry if this has happened to you. I double-checked my settings, and as far as I can tell, if you have a valid email address and can type, it shouldn't be an issue.
I also used the help function for the platform I use. Absolutely help-free, it was. So I'm going to shoot an email off to them to see if they can assist me. Because when it comes to computers, I'm all about using the software and throwing my hands up in despair when it stops working. I am the world's greatest living example of a technological naif. If there weren't templates for these things, I'd still be using drums or semaphore or smoke signals or messages in bottles or something.
So please, accept my apologies. It's not you, so it must be me. I'll see if I can get it figured out.
**Update -- I made the only changes I could think of. If some kind soul would try it now?
Posted by sally at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
Unconscious Mutterings Week 275
- State :: Secrets, Secretary of, of the Union, union suit, underwear
- Lively :: free, fun, enjoyable, energetic, passionate
- Valet :: servant, furniture, Jeeves & Wooster
- Traction :: sand, tires, snow, melted
- Official :: parchment, forms, stamped, triplicate
- Red hot :: Chili Peppers
- Powder :: loose, translucent, setting makeup
- Replies :: answers
- Flagrant :: obvious, unavoidable, must be dealt with
- Tweet :: Sylvester
The sun is shining, I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, it's a lovely day and I'm going to go play in the garden.
Have a lovely Sunday!
Posted by sally at 08:56 AM | Comments (2)
May 03, 2008
Garden Day
You know, I actually got quite a bit done today. I did some straightening of the back porch, cleaned out all of my pots and got my tomatoes planted.
I grow most of my veggies in pots on the back porch instead of in the ground. I can control things like pests & watering better that way. Every year I dump the old potting soil into various flowerbeds and scrub out the pots, rinse them with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to kill any lingering nasties and add new potting soil. I also have a special trick to both save on soil and keep the pots from becoming too heavy to move. I put three to six empty plastic water bottles in each one (the number of bottles depends on their size). So, since my tomatoes came on Wednesday (one each of Koralik, Glacier and a plum that I can't recall the name of right now), along with a Mammoth Sweet Basil, I spent a good chunk of the day getting the supplies I needed to plant them and cleaning out the pots.
It's so nice to look out onto the porch and see three little green teepees surrounding the tomato plants. And since I also cleaned out all of the other pots while I was working, they're all ready for new stuff too. I don't know what else I'll plant this year. I'll have to check out the farmer's market to figure out what else I'm going to grow.
The sad bit of this is that one of my pots had to be retired this year. A year or two before we left Portland, I bought a bunch of large-ish, plain terracotta pots from Home Despot. They're in three different sizes, all of them pretty big (three of them took about 2.5 cubic feet of potting soil today). I coated them inside and out with a waterproofing agent and then painted them all differently. The yellow pot with the blue rim and the mottled blue stripes wound around it lost about half of its exterior over the winter. Snow must have got into a crack and just forced its way through the pot. It's now only about half as thick as it needs to be in several places, and I just don't trust it to hold plants and soil.
What's funny is that it's not the pot I expected to lose first. Another one of them, this one yellow with green leaves, has had a big crack in it for two years now, but I keep managing to plant tomatoes in it. I'm betting this summer is its last gasp. Just as long as my tomatoes survive the season, that's all I care about.
If anybody has any suggestions for what I can do with the old, unuseable pots, I'd appreciate hearing them. I know they can't be composted, but I hate the idea of just tossing them.
Anyway, what with the pots I painted (in various patterns and combinations of yellow, pink and sky blue) and the other pots I've picked up along the way, one big, round low purple one that will hold salad greens and a square red one that is destined for the basil, the back porch looks pretty eclectic. Funky. But I kind of like it that way.
Posted by sally at 05:47 PM | Comments (2)
PhotoHunt: Time
What can I say? I don't have much of that commmodity today.
This is one of my two portable timepieces. (The other is my cellphone.) I like this watch because I can attach it to a beltloop and always know what time it is if I'm teaching a class or leading a rehearsal in a clockless room (like a theatre space). The whistle is also handy, as it allows me to be heard through the loudest of acting exercises. I haven't found a use for the compass yet.
Posted by sally at 10:18 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
May 01, 2008
Tired. Long Day.
And tomorrow will be longer, given that it begins at nine and ends whenever Doubt is over.
Today started with clothing-related disasters (more than one, yay!) and me getting to my office just after 8am. If that sounds incredibly lazy of me, just remember, please, that I don't have to be in the classroom until 9:30am and that I usually stay up until eleven or twelve working on any number of things. But I got everything done before class started and had time to read a final student paper that made me cry it was so sweet. Including the following line :
I may not remember who first taught me history, but I will always remember who taught me to respect myself.
Meaning my teaching partner and me.
Yeah, that makes the job more than worth it.
Posted by sally at 11:37 PM
©2008 - All content copyright Sally Eames-Harlan unless otherwise noted
