My recent blog break

I have posted several bits in the last few days, but before those it had been a few weeks since I posted. I had to take a blog break, I was having a very tough few weeks--perhaps the toughest I have had, ever. Things are looking up and I will be reporting on some very good news soon.

How do I love me? Let me count the ways..

Check it!

A big question for me is how do I balance connecting with students and making the course interesting and personally relevant with not feeding their overwhelming narcissism.

Cheater Guilt

Early last fall semester, I came across identical submissions from two students. The assignment was to create a reference page according to the format within our field. The assignment was small and sort-of ungraded...it was for me to check before they turned in the whole project. The students turned in the same page--with the same mistakes. When I confronted the students about it--they said that because they live together they had worked on it together and that is why they had the same mistakes. I gave them a firm talking to and told them not to work on individual projects together.

This semester they turned in an assignment in another faculty members class with identical passages again. I am feeling a bit guilty. I should have busted them because clearly they didn't learn from my lecture.

My newest habit

As a kid, you weren't cool unless your soda drink of choice was a suicide. This of course meant that you mixed a bit of each of the available drinks. And apparently I was not the only one. Check it!

Perhaps reminiscent of those care-free years of my life, I was moved recently to pour all of the bits of remaining cereal into one container and shake it up creating cereal suicide. And it is delicious. A bit insensitively named, but as a throwback to my childhood days, I gotta go old school in the name.

So imagine my surprise when recently I saw the 'Say Something' episode of the Gilmore Girls and lo and behold--Rory Gilmore (and her friend Paris) are, when near the dorm cafeterias magical wall of all possible cereals, of mixing it up and getting a bit of several. Do you know they have whole restaurants devoted to cereal? In real life, not in Stars Hollow. Man, I wish I lived near one.

My biological clock is barely starting to tick....and its weird.

So, I recently knit a baby sweater that is so awesome I decided not to give it to anyone. I am keeping it. Despite the fact that I am not pregnant, not trying to get pregnant, couldn't even possibly get pregnant (no dating options here in nowheresville). Also, I feel like acknowledging my preference for baby names.

So here goes:
Boys: Trace, Kannon, Cooper, Wynn, Noah, Benjamin, Giles, Brogan,
Girls: Boys names for girls, Elison, Sukie (sookie), Sloane, Grace, Emerson, Lorien, Brady, Caden, Ellis, Evangeline, Piper, Finley, Patience

What a ridiculous waste of my time.

Has anyone used SLIMTIMER?

I waste time. For example, I am currently blogging while listening to commentaries of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That having been said, I am thinking about tracking my work habits a bit more closely (or at all). That said, if anyone has suggestions about SLIMTIMER or other ways to track habits--let's have them. Now I will go grade--yuck!

A new blog-hero

Recently finished backtracking through a new blog (Hunting for Mr. Right). I love finding new blog-heroes*. She sometimes writes the blogs I am thinking in my own head. But my favorite of all her recent posts goes back a bit to a post making comparisons between life and swimming.

As an avid swimmer, I loved the idea. To sum up (but really, check out the whole blog or at least the post for all her funny details), life is like swimming because: 1) It's not as easy as it looks. 2) No matter what you wear, you're bound to look like an idiot. 3) If you don't pay attention, you're likely to run into the wall. 4) Sometimes, all you can do is focus on breathing.....[there are more, but those are the best, in my opinion]

Some of her commenters also noted: life is like treading water (all that movement, but not going anywhere--Brilliant!) and lots of time in either makes you wrinkly. I was a swimmer for years and its still my favorite place to workout and often my favorite place to think.

When I get back in swimming shape (usually the second or third week of regular swimming), it makes me feel powerful and strong and sexy.


*A blog-hero is a person whose blog you admire because it is more [fill-in-word] than yours. Eloquent, Funny, Technologically adept, Clever, etc. Technically my use of a foot-note type thing is an example of taking something that you saw on someone else's blog and thought was awesome. In Hunting for Mr. Right, she frequently foot-notes. My favorite foot-note defined 'secret dating'