Five Random Things, Two Random Books

I didn’t post last week because I didn’t finish any books and then about halfway through the week I was like, “Okay, but that has literally never stopped you before???” And I seriously don’t know what I was thinking but it was so ridiculous that I had to tell you all.

I mean, it’s certainly not like other stuff didn’t happen. So here’s a list because honestly my brain is kind of mush.

1. I finally got DDR–yes, Dance Dance Revolution–for my Xbox, so have been playing it almost every day. The thing about DDR is that the songs are the most important and the Xbox has the worst options for songs, I swear. They only have one DDR game with a good tracklist. All of the other ones have weird Japanese songs with NO BEAT. My daughter was watching me play, and I kept missing the arrows and she asked me “Does the pad not work?” and I was like, “No, these dumb songs have no beat.” The proof is that I did just fine on both “Dancing Machine” and “Conga.” So anyway, I need a PlayStation to get a version of the game with a better tracklist.

I did, of course, buy the version with the good tracklist and have been crushing those songs, thank you very much. But only on basic because that’s just who I am.

2. My daughter went back to campus for spring semester. She’s doing well.

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E is for External #AtoZChallenge

The D key on my keyboard doesn’t work. Worse, I have to press it down so hard to make sure that a D shows up when I want it to that the letter has rubbed all the way off–so much so that you can see the light from the keyboard pretty clearly. The D key is also cracked, which you can’t see, but which I can tell because of how hard I have to press it. Oh, and this all started with my E key sticking and now my R key also doesn’t work that well. You know, I go to type “press” and it comes out as “pess.” Super fun with chatting.

The point is that it sucks. It’s hard to type anything. This has been bugging me for ages. I mean, at least a six months, easy. If not a whole year. Ahem.

d key
The case of the missing D key.

(I know: this is horrible.)

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It’s Monday, and I Obviously Haven’t Read Any Books

Because I was on a reading deprivation, remember?

Full disclosure: I was much more lax with the deprivation than last time–by which I mean, I did do some online shopping and I read my emails from Goodreads. But, all in all, it was nice to turn down the noise that social media and the other words I invite in bring for a little while.

1. Now that I’m back to reading again, I have picked up where I left off in my reread of June Dreams (Book #1 in the Summer series–republished as part of Beach Blondes) by Katherine Applegate.

Yes, yes that’s my original copy from 1995.

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The Teacher Becomes the Student Who Be Clubbin’: January Wrap-Up

1. I went to a club with my friend last week because it was 90s’ night. First of all, the start time for the event was 10 p.m. AT NIGHT. And yes, I said that like the old person that I am.

Her: Did you nap?

Me: Of course! I have to take a nap just to make it to bedtime.

Anyway, we had fun, but the music was not great. We found at when we got there that it was a mix of 90s/00s, and at the end of the night, we both thought of songs that should have been played.

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Weekly Update: Back to School Edition

I did my speedy quick update two weeks ago and feel like I have been rushing ever since. Blergh. But even though this weekend was book club and I had a work/writing date with a colleague, I finally feel a little more settled and calm.

So, obviously, the big news is that the fall semester started. Things have been going well so far minus the extra exhaustion I felt the past two weeks because, whew, that was a lot. I mean, when I got home this past Thursday at 5 p.m., I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until around 7 a.m. Did I mention I was exhausted? Just exhausted.

Two big adventures happened. The first is that I forgot my flash drive in my office for the first day of my short story class, so only had the poorly formatted Google Drive backup of my first day slides. None of my memes showed up properly and everything was just a mess. But I got through it.

The other is that I forgot to publish my students’ readings and assignments that were due last Tuesday, so they were in a panic and I had to completely readjust what we did in class that day. I also made this meme to apologize for my screw up:

welp

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Speedy quick update

This is going to be a rushed post because school starts Monday (aka TOMORROW since I’m writing this after midnight), and I am already behind on everything. Also, my D key keeps sticking, so it’s making writing a hassle. Sigh.

Here’s what I still need to do to be ready for Monday:

  • Figure out if I’m going to have my 1C students blog or not
  • Finish my syllabus for 1C
  • Add the first week documents and assignments to Canvas for my MW 1A and 1C class
  • Revise my first day slides (at least one is out of order)
  • Update the index card questions for my 1C class
  • Prep the index cards with stickers (to put students into groups)

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It’s Monday & Syllabus has eaten my brain

I’ve finished a couple of books these past two weeks (more on that below), but the one that’s had the most impact so far is Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry. In fact, the book has inspired two activities I did in my class the past two weeks.

Syllabus by Lynda Barry

Activity 1: We’re working on poetry and some of my students submitted their pieces for feedback. I found myself making the same comment over and over (needs more imagery!), so inspired by Syllabus and “Variations on a Summer Day” by Wallace Stevens (snippet here), I came up with the following activity.

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Spring 2018 Semester Reflection

For their final exam, I usually have my students complete a reflection. It’s time for me to do the same now that the spring semester has officially wrapped, and my brain has calmed down enough for me to focus on these things.

self-reflection-is-the-school-of-wisdom
source

So, first, what went well:

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June 2018 Wrap-Up

I started this post yesterday and was all excited I would get my Monday post done on a Monday, but I got sleepy before I finished it and went to bed. Oh well.

Anyway, this month has been a month. End of the semester, beginning of the summer session, my birthday, a work conference. I mean, it’s been a lot. But I am here and it’s all good.

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California Acceleration Project Community of Practice, Day 1

(I didn’t post this last night because I fell asleep as soon as I got to my room. But this is all from yesterday, June 22.)

I’m at a conference this weekend, so you know what that means: random thoughts throughout any session that is lecture-based/bores me.

1. This conference started at 1, and they didn’t provide lunch. This information was provided at registration. Guess who still didn’t eat lunch today? To be fair, I ate breakfast and thought I was going to get a chance to eat lunch before I got here, but nope. On the plus side, I do have snacks.

2. I am exhausted, too. So that’s an A+ combination right there. Do you ever figure out how tired you are AFTER you actually get to sit down? That happened to me yesterday and today.  The thought of standing up again makes me want to put my head on the table.

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