Crazy Week!

The last week just flew by! Mark has been super busy practicing for his recital and auditions. I finally realized that the semester was well under way and I needed to get down to business myself!

My students turned in their first essays on Wednesday, and I just finished finalizing grades this morning. The last time I taught this unit (Spring 09), the students really struggled with it, so I was pleased to see that this group seemed to get it! I was also interested to find out that half of them wrote about the film I showed (12 Angry Men) but only a handful wrote about the advertisements I used (I thought they would be more popular). We’re just getting started in the second unit now, which is fun for me because the students get to pick their own topics. No two essays are alike, and I get to learn a lot from their papers.

Other than that, I’ve been trying to make progress on my projects for the classes I’m taking, but that’s been going a little slowly. I do hope to meet with the Pima Community College teacher who will be helping me with a case study either this week or next week. It’ll be good to really get that off the ground. I also need to make time to do more reading, but I just haven’t had it while I’ve been grading papers. Maybe this week.

Mark’s birthday was also last week, so we did make time to go out to eat to celebrate (at Outback, one of his favorite places). I also baked a chocolate cake which has since been devoured (but only one slice at a time). We’re both looking forward to another celebration in a few weeks once he’s finished with all of his auditions.

The rest of this week, I’ll be working as hard as I can so I can hopefully not have to do any homework while our families are in town. I’m looking forward to having everyone here for a few days, and I plan to be spending quality time with our guests (not with my computer!). With that in mind, I better get back to work!

(Note—for anyone who might be reading this and not coming to Tucson for Mark’s recital, you can watch it live online at http://uapercussion.org/live.htm . It begins at 7:30pm Mountain Standard Time on Monday, March 1.)