Sunday, July 03, 2005

Catching Up

Haven't written for a while--not since my Boston trip. I wasn't entirely sure that I would be teaching summer school, but I did have a Freshman Comp class during the first session, which ended Friday. Good class--17 students; 15 of them showed up fairly regularly, one who disappeared after a week and a half, and another who attended erratically and, ultimately, stopped coming three days before the final. I don't understand that; if someone has paid money to attend a class, why doesn't he/she show up? That's wasteful. And dumb. I do know, however, that some students sign up for classes to get federal money to pay their bills (Pell grants), then don't attend. I try to report errant students as soon as I see that they're not attending class regularly--it's a college requirement--and I'll even attempt to contact the student. Mostly, though, I leave that to the student's college.

I enjoyed teaching the class. I haven't had the chance to teach the first comp class in a year. I've been teaching mostly comp/lit and advanced comp; in the fall, I'm teaching one comp/lit and three advanced comps (all of the adv comp classes are on T/Th--I'll be brain dead by the end of the day!). My problem with teaching more than one section of a class is that I feel as though I'm repeating myself. Sometimes, I can't remember which class I've told what. I'm sure this is how my mother feels--she has ten children, and she can't remember who she's told what, so she ends up repeating herself a great deal, usually to the same person (me!). In the spring, I'll have a chance to teach technical writing. I've done a bit of that, but haven't ever taught it, so that should be interesting for me and my students.

I've only been to Mr. Lester's once this season. He usually closes down around the first week in August, so I better stop soon. But I haven't had much time to cook lately, and fresh vegetables require immediate attention.

As for the grass, I've been procrastinating on mowing, so the grass is high and wet. We've had two days of rain and the ground is too soggy for mowing. I'm a bit wary of dragging an extension cord through high, wet grass; right now, I'm hoping the rain lets up and I have a chance to mow the grass soon. I thought about doing it this morning, but the grass is still too wet. And, it looks as though we're going to have another shower. I won't really have a chance to do it tomorrow (July 4th), because I'm working at the bookstore until 10pm. Oh well! Maybe the ground will dry up by Tuesday or Wednesday and I'll be able to do it then.

Gotta go. I've got some knitting to finish and housework to do.

Later.