The Semester Has Begun

Today was the first day of the class I am teaching, and I was a bit nervous this morning leading up to it. Between that and it being the first day of Aunt Flo's visit, I had to pee about twice an hour from the time I got up before 6:30 and when class started at 11:15. But I didn't go down in flames, so that was good. I went to campus early in case there was a problem with traffic or the bus--Hannah's school bus has broken down *twice* in the last two weeks--so I was sitting around for 20 minutes needing to pee and having nothing better to do than go back over my notes for class. What better time to start a lame-ish blog post? So here it is (you've been warned!):

I've been using the little 3x3 pages from our telephone notepad for my listmaking because such a tiny piece of paper doesn't seem quite as threatening as a full sheet. I just tuck it into my Miss Piggy notebook (thanks, Family Jooge!) and add or cross off items as needed. Only now that I'm up to 3 tiny pages filled front and back, it's starting to feel like a pile, and people suffocate under piles. Fortunately, I still manage to get a lot done, even if the 3 long-term items keep getting shuffled from list to list, so I have the satisfaction of being able to crumple up at least one little list each day before having to start a new one.

I can see that I'm going to be busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest this semester, but I am finding it invigorating instead of terrifying. That should prove what many of you have thought about me for a while. :-) Anyhoo, here's what I have on my weekly plate:
2 hours of tutoring in English
2 hours of teaching presentation skills
1 office hour for my student job
4 hours of attending pedagogy classes
2 hours of attending a language use class (presenting in German!)
2 hours of attending a master's thesis class
+ doing whatever the faculty need help with for up to 30 hours per month

This may not sound like much for my friends who are working full time, but John and I are also splitting the after-school care of our not-so-little munchkin, so I have to be home 2 or 3 afternoons a week for munchkin wrangling.

Oh, yeah... remember how I said work just falls into our laps? I might end up teaching a second course (although I initially turned them down). I'll just have to wait and see how that turns out.

Hannah hates sports so much that she has renamed P.E. "sporture". So we were very proud that she was able to overcome her distaste and run/walk *7 kilometers* in a school fundraiser for UNICEF. Yay, Hannah!

I bought some pumpkins a couple of weekends ago to use as fall decorations, and Hannah just couldn't rest until she had mutilated a couple of them.



I tried out something I saw in a book about pumpkins, scraping a pattern into the rind, but not all the way into the flesh. It worked out well on the small green gourd. For the bumply pumpkin, I just drew a face with a black marker; unfortunately, I am no artist, so it didn't turn out "one-eyed goblin" so much as "industrial accident victim".



We were a bit too early with our carving, and now it looks like Night of the Living Dead around here.



This one was supposed to be our jack-o-lantern, but I think I'll pass on the oozing and just toss it in the compost bin. Besides, the farmers still have their stand up, so I can get another one this weekend.



Now it's time for me to get back to work!