Fielded

I think I started reading because the past two days made me absolutely EXHAUSTED!

Yesterday was "field day" at my sons' school and I volunteered to help. I helped with the 220 ft. dash. I forgot to bring sunscreen so the boys and I got slightly sunburned (I actually got more tanned than sunburn, which never happens with me, yay! I think I needed the vitamin D).

After spending nearly all dat at their school I still had to drive an hour there and back to my son's vision therapy appointment. Sigh...

If that were not enough, my youngest son's class had a field trip today (45 minutes away) and I also volunteered to help. No wonder I had to take a nap this afternoon which was followed by a splitting headache (thankfully acetaminophen helped).

I'm ready for the real "summer" to begin. More on that in the next post.

Summer Reading

I've bought way too many books in the past few years that I haven't yet read, so today I got started on one of them:

That way I can see the film adaptation when I'm done.

I'm a relatively fast reader, but I wish I read even faster, because this book is LOOONG! I wonder if I should try War & Peace and then Dostoievsky next. :) Only after I read the other books in my collection that I have yet to read. Sigh...

DONE!

Phew, I'm finally done with the grading and the grade submission!

I don't know why it was more difficult this year than other years. I hope to be more efficient in December, especially because I'll fly to Brazil on Dec. 18, so I need to have everything ready before then.

This morning I ate bread, strawberries with whipped cream, candy (Sunbursts), chips, and a huge cup of rooibos chai with whipped cream to help me finish. :)

Just a few minutes after submitting my grades I received an email from a department on campus reminding me of my missing grades. The only consolation was that there were several other professors in my department that had not submitted their grades either. The worse part is that they will be able to see my name there. If only I had submitted the grades last night! :(

Hopefully nobody will berate me for this.

Gotta go now, my reward is to go to the farmer's market, but it closes in less than two hours! :(

More than HALF-WAY Done!!!

YAY!

I graded all final exams. Now I just need to add the oral exam grade & process/post the final grades to my two language classes.

I already read a number of essays for the lit class too. I don't think it'll take too long to get done with that one.

YAY!

Meanwhile, today was a bad day on the asthma front. :( My oldest son has already had four nebulizer breathing treatments since 6 am (when he woke up up. I'm so tired!)

I think he got worse after I took him to school at 9:30 am because he's part of a play (for the Spring program tomorrow) and they have all these bales of hay on stage and in the gym and he happens to be super allergic to all grasses. I gave him allergy medication this afternoon & will give him more tomorrow before the program. Hopefully it'll help.

Sigh...

Now I have to go and be DONE ASAP!

Chocolate & Tea...

... plus multi-grain chips (a generic version of "Sun chips").

I remembered Jo(e)'s strategy for grading: chocolate and tea, and I got going. nearly 3 pages of all exams graded. 5 more to go!

Sigh. Gotta go brew another cup of tea, though.

I can't wait to be done!!!

P.S. both of my boys have mild asthma today. Not very fun. One stayed home from soccer, the other came back from the game worse than he went (but he barely played, so that was not the problem). I still think it's better like this than having the daily steroid inhalation. My youngest (who used that for 2 years) disagrees, though. 

I Should Be in Grading Jail

And yet, I spent hours today basically wasting time online (after all, I needed to pay homage to my mom by posting a photo of the two of us in facebook as tons of my Brazilian friends are doing). I can't believe I'm being so irresponsible.

Last week I actually had a very valid excuse! I had to finish a photo book (using shutterfly) for my son's teacher whose retirement party will be next weekend. I finally finished it on Friday afternoon and asked for 1 day shipping which will cost as much as the book itself. :( The school is either paying for the book in full or helping me pay for it and I wanted it to get here on time, so I went for it even though I think it's really way too much money (29 dollars!).

So, here's what I need to grade:

- 30 final exams, 8 pages each (I had written 30, no way!)
- oral exams (listen to recordings and email comment to each of my 30 students... sigh).
- 16 critical papers
- 16 final course paper (a "reflective thinking" paper on what they learned).

I will try to update what I did at the end of the day just to see if it helps to try to be accountable on the blog.

Wish me luck.

P.S. Last Thursday I was actually told by colleagues I went to have lunch with at U#2 that for Spanish they are actually expected to turn in the final grades 48 hours after the final (which would have been on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, for me). Good thing nobody's actually checking what I'm doing right now. And I hope that next year the new hire won't either.

Back to Life?

Today my husband took my laptop (which I had tried to turn on again yesterday) to the repair shop and... lo and behold, it's back to life!

K was joking that they are making electronics that are like the human body now -- that can regenerate themselves. Not really, but maybe almost? :)

What a relief!! I've ordered a new adapter for the external hard-drive and I hope that it'll soon be working as well!

I Fried My Laptop Last Night!! :(

I still can't believe I did that!!

Now that I called Apple Care and I know that I have to take it into a store or authorized provider I can blog about it.

I was freaking out this morning (I couldn't go back to sleep at 6:30 am), but my husband talked some sense into me and I calmed down. Sigh...

What happened? It all started with my urgent need to find some older photos that are stored in an external hard drive (Seagate brand) that hadn't been communicating with the laptop anymore...

I tried to plug it in even though the power slot was completely damaged (as in coming off damaged). I received a warning that said that said that the USB port was drawing too much power and had been disabled.

Foolishly, I plugged it into the other USB port and "fried" the compute who went off not to come back on again... Sigh.

I think I won't be able to have the photos I need on time to order a photo book for my son's teacher's retirement party, but I'm hoping I can recover the photos (primary concern) and other files.

What saved my life?

Having started to use Dropbox just a short month and a half ago!!!!!

The final exam for Monday, the proposal I need to submit ASAP to the department are all in Dropbox. Cloud storage rocks!

I will have to use my husband's laptop which is now the only computer in the house. I wish we could afford buying a desktop right now (an iMac), but we can't. Paying debts is the highest priority.

Have you ever "fried" your computer? What was the outcome?

P.S. and I have never been more thankful for the iPhone as well. Last, but not least, Apple customer care rocks!

Officially Overwhelmed and Freaking Out :(

I know I will survive and that things will get done, but right now I don't know how it will possibly happen. And I don't really care, to say the truth, but I'm tired and I'm still overwhelmed and freaking out even though I don't exactly "care" (just because I'm too tired). Case in point: I have a day of symposium presentations to attend all day tomorrow (I will try to work while I watch presentations) and I just go back to work on Saturday night... We'll see how it'll go. First, a summary of today:

Final exam followed by a lunch for my students at U#3 was an overwhelming success. This was the second time I was meeting 4 of the students in person (last time was for last December's final) and first time for 4 other students. They were sweethearts. Not only did they love the food and thank me abundantly, but they sat around the table and we talked for over an hour after everyone had finished eating. One of the students had to go to class and another one had a phone interview (all but one of the eight are seniors!) but came back after the call was done and was so happy we were still there!

I mean... that's why I teach. Because interacting with students is priceless.

(tangent: I have decided that I will start a new tradition: writing a good-bye letter [email] to my students every semester. And, maybe, write an introduction letter too. I will definitely do that. The hardest part will be finding the time!)

OK, so... here's what I need to do:

1) Edit next semester's beginner class syllabus and write a formal proposal to my department requesting to teach 4 days and have the 5th devoted to online activities. I need to provide a rationale and HOURS that the students will work (50 minutes class time, 2h of studying related to that class) in order to justify not meeting with them that 5th day. I obviously have been postponing writing this for weeks... Sigh. (Still working on it Friday 05/03)

2) Finish deciding what will be in final exams next week and email a study guide for students ASAP. Done at the last minute, Sunday 05/05.

3) Email more details about oral exam recording for students (this had to be done DAYS ago!!). Done! Friday 05/03.

4) Email more guidelines for literature students about final project due on Monday. Done Saturday night (?). Grade their paper that was due this past Monday and email them feedback. ASAP.

5) Grade last week's language class test & go on Monday and Tuesday to administer the final exams.

6) Spend sometime there for "in person" oral exams. Grade final exams and calculate final grades and post grades.

7) Grade final projects from lit class and give final grades. 

8) (ongoing) Keep giving permission for students that want to be in my Fall classes (I have a feeling that the new hire will take care of that and it will be one less thing I will have control over. Gotta prepare myself for that possibility. And think positive: one less thing to worry about). Email senior applicants that they may not get in the class. DONE!

All right, I should be working and not blogging. I hope to be able to cross more items SOON! :)

Not Over Yet

The work for this semester is not over yet. Far from it, actually. I still have tons of grading to do and three more final exams to administer (and then grade). :(

I'm in a hotel room right now. I came to U#3 because I wanted to give the final exam for my "distance" students in person. And... because I'm crazy like that, I am also going to serve food for them tomorrow after the exam. Sigh...

I'm getting sick and tired of cooking!! At least cooking the same dish (moqueca, one of the available recipes) over and over again. OK, only twice, but it feels like more: I it prepared for my U#2 students last week on Sunday and this Sunday again when my U#1 students came to my house (there are only four girls, such a fun group!).

I have to sleep now. Hopefully morel later...

I need to read more poetry...

... in fact, everyone should read more poetry. I think we'd have a better world if more people read poetry.

I'm going to teach my "next to last" class in a few minutes. The almost last class in the very first literature class I get to teach in my own language, of the literature of "my people." I don't know if the course was that great, but I'm glad we're ending with poetry.

I need to read more poetry. I bought three anthologies in São Paulo's fascinating, sprawling used-book stores, we call them sebos, a weird name, since "sebo" means excessive fat (in people's skin or animal fat too). I bought Mário de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira (my favorite!!) and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. But I need more. Much much more! Ferreira Gullar is glorious!

Sigh...

I also need to write more poetry. When I read it, my entire being yearns for it, both reading and writing, but the latter is very difficult. Because when you really know literature, when you really know and love art, calling yourself an artist is a very difficult, nearly impossible, thing to do.

If there's one thing I've always wanted in my life, ever since I was thirteen years old, was to be...

... dare I say it? It's so hard!

... a poet.

One more...

... photo of my baby niece. This was taken soon after she was born:

I think she looks a lot more like her daddy (my brother) as a baby than her own little brother did when he was born only a year and five months ago (they are so close in age, my nephew and niece!). I will try to post photos of my brother as a baby and his own babies later.

I can't believe I repeat myself so much in the blog (and, I'm sure in real-life interactions). When my nephew was born I had the same rant about the advantages of the metric system then that I wrote two days ago. Sigh... My apologies for being so repetitive! :(

A presidential WHAT????

I don't know if this was the weirdest (Freudian?) slip EVER, but just now K was watching a couple of clips from the opening of Bush's memorial library when, out of nowhere, I began to ask K a question:

"This garage....

"Wait! This library..." (and we both burst out laughing so hard that tears sprang to my eyes)

What I wanted to ask was whether the library was for the first George Bush or his son Dubya.

And it's not like I didn't know anything about the library, but I had read tweets from my friends about Bush's presidential library (I didn't listen to NPR today at all), so I did know about it.

Sigh...

What does this "garage" mean? Just that I'm a crazy absent-minded person? ;-)

(I know, this post really classifies as "Really Random Stuff"!)

Three Twelve Hour Days, Preceded by a Night away from home

This week was grueling and it hasn't even ended. Sigh...

On Sunday, after a quick 24h trip to Maryland to see our oldest son perform in a band festival...

(we drove there on Friday night and came back late on Saturday night and I still had to cook for the next day before going to bed!)

... I left home around 12 pm with the car loaded with food items.

I cooked Brazilian food all afternoon and served it to my students -- too bad only half of them showed up and I had tons of leftovers! I stayed overnight at a friend's house because I had to teach the next day. The best thing that happened Sunday was meeting a Brazilian woman who is a visiting scholar and who is staying at the place where I was hosting my students. She helped me cook and it was great to make a new friend!

Monday
After teaching and then spending hours working and never even making a dent on my never-ending "to-do-list" I drove back home in absolute record time (59 minutes -- really crazy).

Tuesday
Left home at 9 am, returned past 9 pm. Taught class, stopped at farmer's market, had lunch with friends, went to the dentist, had a meeting with this faculty fellowship group I'm part of, had a meeting with a struggling student, grabbed something to eat and went to a long (albeit interesting) reading of Dante's Divine Comedy in which I read in Portuguese at the request of the department chair (at U#1, not where I work full-time).

Wednesday
Drove to U#2, taught, had office hours in which I tried to keep on working on my to-do-list, went to yoga (thankfully!), then I took my new Brazilian friend (see Monday) and two other Brazilian women for dinner! It was great, but I didn't get back home until past 10 pm.

I'm sick and tired of 12 hour days and barely seeing my kids. :(

Today I had a more reasonable day (with a yoga/pilates class to boot!), but I'm stressed because I still have tons of things to do and they keep multiplying (typical end-of-semester woes, I know!)

I have so much grading to do that maybe I need to drink some strong tea and try to pull an all-nighter, but I'm sure I can't. :( My students will have to be patient with me.

The worst part of the story? Next week promises to be just as bad. :( Well, maybe a little less because I will only teach one day, but maybe worse because I will actually drive to U#3 to give the final exam in person (and to serve a meal for my students!).

Let's see how it goes... Sigh...

My Niece

Here she is!

I wish I could be there!

She's here!

No photos yet, but my niece was born about three hours ago and everything went well.

My brother's email has the stats (3.13 kg = 6 lbs 14 oz or, "6.9 lbs"* and 48.5 cm = 19.05 in), but he gave my mom more details when he called her (and then she talked to me on skype): my niece has lots of hair (I LOVE hairy babies!) and she was already breastfeeding well.

I hope my sister-in-law has a swift recovery. I'm a bit concerned that no one can stay with her overnight in the hospital :( , but I'm hoping she will be fine. I can't wait for the photos!!!


*I HATE expressing weight (particularly babies') in pounds and ounces, I think it's a pathetic way to measure, every Brazilian I know who lives here in the U.S. gets their newborns' babies' weight wrong because of the lbs oz thing!! The metric system is so much better in every way. Sigh...