Yay!
- HitWW has been going smoothly. No food poisoning to speak of yet, and we are often forced to try things that wouldn't have been our first choices from the menu. Some of them are unpronounceable. Some of them don't have English translations. We thrive on the unknown.
- Teaching is going really well. When I emailed a student today to see if she would be willing to meet with our staff once a week for an extra 20 or 30 minutes to help her plan and write her next term paper, her response was, and I quote, "Oh! Wow! That sounds like a GREAT idea! I'd LOVE to do that! That would be such a big help!!!!" (Excessive exclamation marks and capitalization hers.) She's a tenth grader. She wants to give up some of her free time to work ahead on her term paper with us. Seriously, we have the best students. Also, I'm current on all of my grading. My guilt quota is normally spent on not returning papers in a timely manner, so I guess it gets spent here when I'm on top of things. Heh.
- I have been knitting LIKE A FIEND. Hats, scarves, gloves, slippers, lacework, you name it.
- Similarly, did you know how easy pillowcases are to make (I'm talking throw pillow covers)? I didn't until last weekend! It took less than ten minutes to sew one. I'm embroidering it too, so the project isn't done yet. But when it is, I will post pictures.
- Culinary endeavors: I highly recommend this recipe from Alpineberry if you have any extra meyer lemons sitting around. Hubs doesn't like cake, but he even said these were a major win. Also, roasted root vegetables: so delicious, so easy. Can I have them every night, please?
- In other news, Ivan managed to rip a curtain rod wall mount from the wall today. There weren't even any curtains up. It was screwed into the wall by three screws 7 or 8 feet from the ground. Figure that one out.
- I have been reading, and not just for classes, which is really super great. I mean, revisiting Dante, Aquinas, Boethius, Lewis, Sayers, Eliot, etc. is great, but it's really nice to read some new things of my own choosing. Finished in the last two months:
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer) [startling, sad, gripping]
- Re-read the Hunger Games series (Suzanne Collins) [love me some good YA]
- Paper Towns (John Green) [see above]
- Save the Cat! The last book on screenwriting you'll ever need (Blake Snyder) [basic in a lot of ways, but really good at talking about marketability and practical ways to improve your story]
- Currently reading: Canticle for Liebowitz (Walter Miller) [Guys, this book is seriously awesome. Monks preserving literacy in a post-nuclear world. What more could you want?], In the Company of Others (Julie Czerneda) [not sure I'll finish this one. been working on it for several months. over halfway through, and I'm still not hooked.], Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dillard) [Like drinking a cool glass of water from that well you drank from as a child.].
- Next on the list: The Great Gatsby. Never read it before (everyone else read it in high school. My high school made me read Hobbes, Montesquieu, and Tocqueville instead). Looking forward to it.
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