As usual, the semester is flying by--in fact, it's now one quarter over. The past few weeks have been filled with classes, grading, and other day-to-day stuff that's kept both of us busy (for Mark, it's been a lot of rehearsals). I'm finding it a challenge to adjust to my new schedule, which includes 10 hours a week working at our tutoring center (I'm filling in there for a colleague who is on leave this semester). That means I'm only teaching 3 classes instead of 4, which is certainly a fair exchange, but it's been an adjustment to have so much more of my time each day scheduled. For example, it's much trickier to find a time to meet with a colleague about a project we're working on for one of our classes because I have less flexibility in my schedule. But it's really a great opportunity for me to explore the teaching of writing in a totally different context: working with writers one-on-one. I'm also leading weekly training meetings for a small group of student tutors who want to learn more about working with ESOL writers, and I'm contributing small lessons/activities/tips in the weekly staff meetings for all the writing tutors. So I'm learning a lot, and I hope I'm making a meaningful addition to the other tutors' knowledge base. I've also been completely reworking the curriculum for the writing class I'm teaching, which is pretty exciting, but it also takes a lot of time. I feel like I'm just barely one step ahead of the students most of the time, which is not how I prefer to do things. So, there's a lot going on around here, but it's mostly good stuff.
In my life outside of school, I've been cooking a lot, and trying some new recipes. Which reminds me, the new pizza dough I posted about last month is definitely a keeper. Specifically, doubling the recipe makes a perfect large pizza. I also found a tzatziki sauce that turned out pretty well, and I made some tasty broccoli soup using some ham bones I had in the freezer. Yum. Of course, I seem to have an unending list of recipes that I'd like to try, but sometimes it's hard to deviate from an old standard at the end of a long day.
I'm also reading the Harry Potter books, which Mark has wanted me to read for a while. I've just started the 5th one, which is where the story line gets a little "darker" than the previous books. I'm not expecting to become a die-hard fan of the series, but the books are interesting, and at least now I get all (or maybe most of?) the Harry Potter references people make.
So that's a bit about what's been going on here.
