When the buds begin to pop and the robin takes a hop

Spring is upon us, and time is flying by.

I’m at Rob’s work now, in an empty office, and we will be leaving from here at about noon for my friend April’s wedding weekend.  April and I have known each other for about two decades now, roughly 4/5 of our lives.  I’m very excited to see her and to be a part of her wedding.

Something that she’s gotten me interested in recently is paraprofessional work.  April taught elementary school for a while but then moved and took a paraprofessional (teacher’s assistant) job.  It sounds like it could be pretty perfect for me – putting me in an educational setting where I could provide one-on-one or small group attention to students.  So, I sent in my transcripts and a form to the regional superintendent of schools, and I now have a letter of approval and an educator’s ID number.  Very official sounding.  I applied to all of the openings in the area but didn’t have any luck.  Other than getting a couple of interviews for lunchroom/playground supervising.  I mentioned to the interviewing principals that I was hoping to get a classroom job, and I can understand why they didn’t want to hire me for a couple of months only to have to repeat the hiring process in the fall.  One of them called me back to say that she might have a teaching assistant position opening up soon, in which case she’d like to have me interview for it.  So that was nice.  April said that a lot of these jobs don’t come up until the fall, once schools have a sense of which classrooms and students need some extra help.  I’m hoping that something will work out for me then.

Rob and I recently got back from an early first anniversary celebration vacation.  We went back to the same place in Door County where we had our honeymoon, and the week was a great mix of hiking and sitting around watching tv and playing games.  Intense activity plus intense slothfulness.

We found a rock

Even more inspirational

One of the coolest things we saw: the spray from splashing waves would make rainbows!

We hiked through lots of pretty woodsy areas

And finally, a couple of three-word phrases that I’ve encountered recently.  Driving up to church each weekend, we pass the “Dead End Saloon” by the highway.  Its sign announces: Breakfast, Lunch, Fish.  And there was some flooding in the east several weeks ago.  I heard a report on NPR including impressions from an eyewitness.  I heard her describe the waters as “Wet.  Scary.  Russian.”  Oh, homophones.

Belated posting

(Written April 6th, 2010.)

Hello.

Well, for the fall session I taught a class of 13, about a week ago I wrapped up a class of 20, and at about the same time I started up a class of 10.  It’ll be nice to end the year with a smaller group again.  It’s always fun to see the way the kids portray themselves online through their posts and assignment responses.  Some of them are really eloquent and write beautifully.  Others do not use language quite so well, but sometimes those kids are great participants at our face-to-face class sessions.  Here are a few examples of the latter:

First, a forum response to the question of whether it is better to speak concisely or with lots of detail:

I believe it is better to use specifically chosen words because then you can get your point across easily. If the topic is hard to understand, a few words to generalize the topic. If you try to explain your own theory, the choice of words is not limited, but you have to choose them wisely. Depending on the given topic you have to decide which option to use. If your topic is a given idea you can give your point to the main problem or solution. Some benifits of the specifically chosen words are you have a word to start on and bring a conclusion to. Benifits for a given topic are all the different possibilities you have for choices. Some costs for both are, the limited resources and too broad of options that you can not find the answer. I tend to use the given topics and try to talk a lot about a given topic. I use a given subject with a broad generalization and expected to follow it.  I prefer to listen to the chosen words because it is easier understand or comprehend. I believe specifically chosen words are better to describe your thoughts on the ideas.

What, now?  And yes, the student’s vote was for conciseness.

Next, a few pictures that speak louder than words:

Excellent powers of observation. (Though apparently not so much for the page with all of the instructions.)

And the same kid, with what is my favorite instance of plagiarism so far.  This forum required both an original post about the reading and a thoughtful reply to a fellow student:

Surprisingly critical, considering he copied it (and removed some details).

Meeting a need I didn’t know existed

The last couple of times I drove home from choir practice this winter, I was tickled to see a building whose lit-up letters proclaimed, “ELF STORAGE.”  I had never before considered the plight of those with too many elves and too little space.

Rob thought that maybe they would intentionally leave the first letter unlit through Christmas.  I hope they did.

The trees are up, the cookies are baked, bring on the vacation!

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please to put a penny in the old man’s hat.  (If you’ve no penny, a ha’penny will do – if you have no ha’penny, then God bless you.)

Sometimes I miss my high school madrigal-singing days.

Rob is working today, and I wish he weren’t.  Due to the need for some year-end work and lots of Christmas services preparation, I stayed with the fam from Thursday till last night (to work at church).  Rob came for Saturday and Sunday, but I still feel like we have some hanging out catching up to do, particularly since I’ll be spending some of next week at Grandma’s in Minnesota while he’ll be back at work.

My two online courses for the quarter ended up being merged into one, as there were only four kids in one district.  Things started off great with the four, a little rocky with the nine others, many of whom had taken classes through the organization before and were assuming they’d get 4′s (from a 1-4 grading scale) on everything they turned in.  Since these gifted students are purportedly taking my class because it offers them more of a challenge than is available in their regular classes, I have no problem maintaining rigorous standards and pushing them to excel.  And, in the final weeks of the class, I am pleased to be seeing some improvement.

So, let’s see… life.  Rob and I have been enjoying checking out housing listings sent to us by a realtor friend.  When we met with him a couple of months ago, he urged us to get a loan pre-approval right away.  We still haven’t (though I did recently talk with a loan guy at our bank), so we’ve felt a little sheepish and haven’t wanted to ask the friend to show us houses.  Silly, we know, but there you have it.  Instead, we’ve driven by a couple we thought would be interesting and have creepily walked around and peered in through the windows.  (We’re pretty sure all the houses are unoccupied…)  Even in our pre-pre stages, we’ve gotten attached to a couple of houses that have been bought, which is sad but also good, because we know there will be other nice houses out there.  It’ll be super if we find something soon that will allow us to take advantage of both the low winter prices and the government tax credit.  But if not, it won’t be the end of the world.

I was lucky to be able to have breakfast with a friend from Hawaii on Monday.  We were at college together, and she’s been teaching band back in Hawaii since graduating.  It’s hard to believe graduation was about 2 1/2 years ago.  I’m so old!  (I like writing things like that every now and then to make my future self hate me.)

All the driving back and forth has gotten to be a strain, so I bid farewell to my choir after our concert in early December.  Singing with them has been great.  Who knows, perhaps I’ll be back someday, or at least find a different group to join.  For now, the extra time is welcome.

I’ve been thinking about trying to find a closer job as well, but an obstacle to turning on the hunt engines full steam is my somewhat illogical loyalty to my summer camp job.  Who knew – many jobs don’t get the summer off!  Growing up with a college professor father has skewed my perception of The Way Things Should Be.  I am scheduled to teach online for the next couple of quarters as well, so I might sort of spin my wheels until August, at which point “real life” might begin.  Incidentally, I always feel like I am putting off real life – like there’s always some goal in the future that is supposed to launch it, but surpassing those goals doesn’t end up making me feel any more grown up.

I’m excited for Christmas!  I think Rob and I are most looking forward to giving each other the gifts that we’ve made.  Yay.

And now for some pictures.

Rob gave me a PowerPoint presentation about why it would be a good idea to buy parts and make a new computer.  The presentation included lots of technical info, but also…

…explained things in terms I could understand.    The result of his labors:

New computer!

We raked a lot of leaves this fall.

Veterans Day – Rob didn’t have to work, we went walking and saw a bunch of crazy trees.

Mom gave us a mini bottle of champagne for our mini (6 month) anniversary.

Rob’s work gave everyone some very fancy chocolates for Christmas.  These babies are hand-painted and delicioso.

And finally, a plea from the box that held a commemorative edition of a movie (a Christmas gift for Rob’s dad): “Please remove the contents of this carton prior to displaying on store shelf.”  You have to wonder what prompted the company’s decision to print that request on every box.

Merry Christmas!

Competition

Rob and I share the basement bathroom with the cats, whose litter box is in the unused shower stall.  I was in there for a while one day, and, as I opened the door to leave, I saw that one of the cats had been sitting against the other side of the door.  He stood up, gave me a prolonged, chastising yowl, and then stomped purposefully toward the shower stall.

In other news,

1. Rob’s dad had his appendix removed on Sunday, so we have one more thing in common.  (Though he’s got three bitsy scars and I have one that is a few inches long.)  He’s not working this week, which is very unusual for him.  He’s chagrined that he won’t be able to get on the treadmill for a couple of weeks, and that he’ll have to start out slowly.  Normally, he walks briskly for about an hour and a half every morning.
   
2. We found out last week that Rob gets federal holidays off!  How exciting!  So he didn’t have to work on Monday (go, Columbus), and next up is Wednesday, November 11th (go… veterans?  I think).
3. I’m getting my online course up and running again.  Somehow, all of my online stuff from last spring was lost during a move from one building to another.  Not sure exactly how, but I don’t mind putting all the assignments back up, linking as needed, and finding my own pictures and videos to enhance the class.  (Last spring, my co-teacher did a lot of the course set-up.  This year, I’m on my own.)  The only part that I’m not enjoying is thinking about the grading criteria.  Each teacher picks 5 set criteria from an extensive list, and then each of the assignments are tied to one of the 5.  No problem, you might think, and I wish you were right, but in fact the grading criteria are so detailed and long-winded that they are begging to be ignored – I mean, there’s no way that every aspect mentioned will be relevant to any course.  To make matters worse (to me, though the previous point is probably the most important), they include lots of fancy-pantsy words, which are often used incorrectly.  It irks me that the standards to which we’re supposed to be holding the students are full of errors.
   
4. Rob and I got the first season of the original (British) “The Offic e” from the library.  These episodes are the first I saw, back in the day, before watching the American version.  I had forgotten how incredibly painful they can be.