Insomnamaniac

3:43 am and I have been awake nearly an hour. I can feel the weight of my sleeplessness gathering weight, pushing me into an early grumpiness. But I resist, and resistance is not futile as shown by the consistent defeat the implacable Borg suffer at the hands of individuals. Now that was a show laden with ideology.

Poor kitty is still not home. She is eating again, but a bit wobbly on her legs. Vet says she does not think she could make it to the litter box, or else she would be back with us.

Just for the record, it is currently 58 and yesterday's high was 71. December 19. Bring on winter.

Well, lets not. I am definitely in the grips of my usual pre-Christmas blahs.

I have been working on my syllabus for next term this past week. Struggling at times, having some experience from last semester has not made the job easier this semester. I do not think I served my students all that well, at times anyway, and I would like to make this coming semester more useful for them. But therein lies my problem, how to make it useful when most research says freshman English is of little long term value.

I have also been working on my thesis. That is depressing as well. The more I learn about poetry, the more I read and grow, the less I like what I do. I think some of it is not bad, but none of it actually achieves the status I seek. Reaching back to my gamer days, it is like having a perfect game, where every quest was resolved to achieve the greatest reward, every area explored, and before the final you beat the game movie played, I would dump the character I had built and start all over again with a new character. Endings do not interest me as much as beginnings and middles.

Today we are off to a local kittey rescue site to see if we can find Daph a friend. We will not be bringing anyone home today, or even this year I suspect as D must recover first, but we will look and see who might fit our house.

Coffee is ready, so I go for grabbing a cup.

The wind shifts the chimes
a cricket sings
how can this be winter?

Semester 1 done

At 13:35 I submitted the grades for this term. In the last day and a half I have graded 22 sets of papers from my students,and now I am a bit burnt, dreaming of a nap, but the vet is coming to poke and prod the kitty, so I am not allowed to sleep. Ahhh, sweet sleep.

I did not feel to put upon grading today as the weather is rather damp (thundershowers and rain). It is warm however, right now the thermometer says 67.

I think I learned a great deal teaching this semester. I am convinced it is not a career for me, though I also think I would be good at it given practice.There were days when I left the class this term sure I had wasted the student's time, other days when I was sure I had managed to give them something useful. In general, if pressed to make a claim, I would say the course was not a total waste of their time. Optimism lies at the center of every teachers philosophy.

Nasty booms outside. It still feels weird to get thunderstorms in December. Sounds like hail too!!

It feels great to have finished this semester!

Living the Life

The cold weather lately has frozen up all the intertubes in this area making it impossible to post on this blog. :)

Well, it has been cold, but I have been snuggled up tight with my computer working away. Fortunately I have a little breathing room today and tomorrow. Here is some of what I was working on: http://smlingrell.com/TeachingPortfolio.html

Starting Wednesday, I will have a whole whack of essays to grade, and then this semester will be finito completo. If you are wondering why I am seemingly so silly this morning, it is cause I woke at 3:30 and could not get back to sleep. So, I am in one of them funky sleepy moods.

I do not remember when my last post was, but things have been going well for me. Thanksgiving was pleasant, the last week of school was fine. I took some cookies into class on the last day and gave my students a treat. Hopefully, they walked out of the semester having learned something useful as well.

I now have a few weeks to work on my stuff before the final semester begins. It is going to be a busy time for me. But we can always hope it will be pleasant. :)

End of a season

I have finished both presentations, and I feel good to have them finished. They were the last major exercise for the two classes, now I need to finish my teaching portfolio and grade a whole whack of papers for the class I am teaching, but I am essentially finished with this semester. yayh

The presentations went well. I have learned from the semester of teaching how to babble away and not say anything. I went in to the first one knowing I would end up at around 12 minutes of a 15 minute presentation, and that is what I did. A few questions, and the show was over. Yesterday's presentation of Domanski's first book The Cape Breton Book of the Deadwent well. Only 8 students showed up for class and I ended up being the only one presenting. I was a little concerned during my initial run through that I would be over my time limit (20 minutes), but when I found out I was the only presenter, I said great, and just babbled away. I think I ended up at around 40 minutes (a guess as I did not check before going up in front of the class). Interestingly enough, it was fun. Both of them were. Yes, I was a little nervous at the start, but shortly after getting going, it was all pleasure.

When I returned to school some years back now (5?), one of my major worries was that I would not be able to do the presentations that are a big part of class work. At first, it was difficult, but the drama course made a huge difference, and I have seen a large increase in my confidence in the last year. Yes, I am chuffed with my self.

The weather has become cold and icky here now. I miss the warmth already. Today is not too bad, in fact it feels more like spring than late fall, and I am pleased with it. I actually found my toque and gloves before leaving this morning!!

I am nearly one semester away from having completed this degree! wow, how time flies when you are stressed out.

Speaking to ppt

Last week was a rather quite week. Nothing special happened in classes, or in the one I teach. The only thing of note was a reading by Phillip Levine. He is now 80, looking a little frail, but when he reads his poetry, his voice is strong and he sounds young. He was probably the best reader that I have seen since Dodge.

This week is busy, at least the early part. A presentation this afternoon and another Wednesday will keep my hopping. After that, it is all downhill until school quits for christmas. So soon.

The weather has turned winter here. Blech I says, blech.

The Elephant and the Rose

The day after the day after. Have you gotten used to saying President Obama yet?

Riding the bus to school yesterday I heard one young man saying he thought Obama would never make it, all the late, undecided voters would swarm the ballot box and McCain would win. His friend, a supporter of the old man and the procreator, was having a tough time. Seems he had spent much of the last three months trash talking, and now all his words are coming back to bite him in sensitive spots.

I spent the night sitting on the couch watching CNN's online coverage and madly refreshing their election results page. One of the most exciting races occurred right here in NC. The vote count is still going on, with Obama ahead by about 14 thousand.

Fall has finally painted the world here. I am hoping to get out and take some photos of the pretties today.