Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Randomness....

I find myself in a peculiar position...one set of quizzes to grade, but no grading frenzy until Saturday. Wow.

I'll have two or three days of down time, so I'll be able to update my Moodle course sites, read a book, watch movies, play in the yard. Then, I'm back to grading like a crazy person--midterms are here--though I don't have many exams to grade, just two. After fall break, though, I'll have plenty to do, so I'm going to make the most of the down time.

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The weather is driving me nuts. Yesterday, the high was almost 90; today, the temp here is about 66 at noon. Tomorrow, the forecast is 90 again, then we revert to 70s for the high and 50s for the low. I wish autumn would decide to stay for a while.

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I will finally be able to get a flu shot tomorrow, free, thanks to the college's ties with LSUHSC. At first, we were told that the hospital didn't have enough supplies of the vaccine, but, somehow, they magically appeared. This doesn't cover the H1N1 strain, though, so I still have to watch for that. My students have been great about staying home when sick (however mild!), so I haven't had epidemic absences so far. Actually, attendance in my on-campus classes is great, and the online classes seem to be humming right along.

***

I have my fingers crossed for my daughter. She's taking one more test today. If she passes this one, she has a full-time teaching position in two elementary schools in Austin, TX. She went back to college for her teaching certification in Art, did her practice teaching, took two Praxis tests and received her teaching certificate. She has to pass the classroom teacher's test in order to have this job. She deserves it. She's spent most of her adult life, so far, working at minimum wage jobs in cafes and restaurants. She's ready to move up. And, if she gets this job, she'll probably make more money than I do! It's about time she stops stressing about money. Besides, she needs to make enough money to afford my retirement home!

***

Yesterday was a lousy day. I pulled up to the end of my driveway to leave for school and discovered my mailbox flat on the ground. I thought someone had backed into it, but, when I looked at it yesterday afternoon, it seemed that it just fell; my daughter's boyfriend cemented it into the ground in the summer, so the entire thing must have shifted from the road vibrations. One side of my property is a ditch, and the road has a bridge over it right by my driveway. We get so much heavy truck traffic that I think the vibrations just caused the earth to shift. I'll probably have to pull the box up periodically. I can't think of any other way to solve the problem except to have a brick enclosure built around the box. I'll talk to Pete about it. That may be another summer project.

In addition to the mailbox, I misplaced my one pair of glasses; I couldn't read anything, so I borrowed a pair from someone--they were huge and not as strong as mine, so I ended up with eyestrain and a headache. And our bookstore doesn't sell reading glasses--a big mistake with all the older professors and students on campus. I told them that!

I went to the ValueMart here and bought six pair of reading glasses for $5--they had a sale! Lucky me, as long as I don't misplace all of them! I'll leave a couple of pair in my office in case I "forget" to bring a pair with me.

***

So that's the boring randomness of my life for now! Maybe something more exciting will happen--but not too exciting. I rather like "boring."

4 comments:

Christie said...

This weather is driving me nuts too! I keep getting tricked into thinking the fall weather is here to stay, and then yesterday arrived. Now, today is cool again and the forecast has almost every other day as warm. Yuck!

I hope that your daughter does well on her test!

dotsmom said...

Thanks, Christie! I talked to her after she took it, and she thinks she did okay. She's trying to get used to getting up at 6am (she is so NOT a morning person!), but she loves getting off in the afternoon and having free weekends. She's been subbing at the schools where she'll hopefully work and loves it.

Bulldaddy44 said...

I sympathize with your mailbox problem. The route my son takes to school is taking damage due to the large and heavy oil equipment traffic. A suggestion is to get a large metal pipe about 3 feet long and drive-it into the ground with a sledge hammer. Hope this helps.

dotsmom said...

Good suggestion, Kevin, except if you saw me, you'd laugh at the thought of me wielding a sledgehammer!

K. Smith