Some small good news

Well, neither of these things is as exciting as Mark's recent offer, but I wanted to pass them along anyway. First, I just heard that my application for funding from GPSC was approved! This means most of my costs to attend TESOL in a couple of weeks will be covered (unfortunately, I probably won't see any of the money till after it's over, but at least we can pay ourselves back for the expenses). The other good news is that a proposal I submitted for a small local conference here in Tucson was accepted. It'll be fun to share about a project I'm working on right now, and it's also another thing I can add to my CV. (It'll make 4 presentations in the last year, which ought to look good to prospective employers!)

First Offer!

Mark got his first acceptance yesterday from the school in Bowling Green! Not only has he been accepted, but he’s been offered a spectacular half-time TA position. Hooray! This was really great news, especially since it came so quickly (he had just auditioned there on Wednesday), and since it came just as he was preparing to head off for the final audition in Iowa (some time on Sunday). Mark wasn’t able to spend much time at the school in Bowling Green while he was there, so he didn’t meet many people from the studio or get to see a rehearsal or anything; but he did spend quite a bit of time with the professor (who graciously took him to and from the Detroit airport, about an hour away). All of his interactions with this professor have been really great so far. Of course, we are hopeful that Mark will have more offers coming in the next few weeks. It would be so great for him to be able to choose among several good options. He has until April 15th to respond to this offer (the others should have similar guidelines). We’ll keep you posted! Thanks to everyone who has been praying about this—we’re so thrilled to see the Lord’s provision already coming into place for our next step.

Recital Update

It’s amazing, but Mark’s recital has now come and gone. Mark’s parents and brother came to town on Saturday, and my parents and grandma came on Monday, all to see the big event. My great aunt and uncle also came down from Phoenix. Several of our friends from church, along with Mark’s colleagues from school, were all there. He did a great job! A few minutes after, he heard from his professor that he passed, which was great news. We managed to get to bed before midnight, and got up around 4am to get Mark to the airport for his audition in Ohio. He had a very busy day yesterday, and had an interview, audition, and test at the school this morning. Right now, he’s on his way back home. He’s expecting to hear back from the school in the next week or so. He’ll be heading to Iowa for the last audition on Saturday, so he’s kind of in the home stretch now. We really appreciate having all the support from our family and friends (including those of you who watched online!). Thanks.

In other news, my final project for the research methods class fell through yesterday due to red tape at the community college. Thankfully, I had some other ideas, and I was able to discuss those with my professor right away. So, I’ve got approval to move ahead on a new project, but I still have to put together another formal proposal and get started. I’ll be looking at students’ emails (to me), so I have the data already, which should give me a good head start. I’m thankful that I hadn’t spent too much time on the other project yet! (But it’s really time to get down to business now…).

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.)

Valentine's Day

Well, Mark and I didn't make any special plans to celebrate Valentine's, since he was just getting back into town. (We've also postponed Valentine's till March before, because his birthday is in the same week). But, I got the idea to make these cookies from one of my favorite cooking blogs several weeks ago, and I had been scheming ever since to make them while he was gone and have them ready when I brought him home from the airport. I had a few challenges with the icing, and mine aren't as pretty as the ones in the picture from the recipe, but overall, I think they're pretty darn cute! (And, they taste good too!)

Here's the display I put on the table (with some close-ups):

And, here's the ones that didn't fit on the plates:

(I didn't realize they were upside-down, but you get the idea! :-)

Don't they look yummy? I think I'll have to go eat one now...(okay, maybe two!).

Audition Update

Mark’s home safely and without any travel difficulties; hooray! With the wild weather in the SE, he was fortunate to have arrived in Tallahassee before the worst of the storm hit. Several other percussionists were unable to get to town because of the weather. Mark felt like his audition went well and he had a good time on the trip overall. He expects to hear something (maybe just about admission, not financial support) by mid-March.

Auditions Begin

Mark and I were up early this morning to get him to the airport for his 6am flight to Tallahassee. I heard from him this afternoon, and he has arrived safely (but is very tired!). His hotel has a shuttle that picked him up from the airport, and may even take him to and from the University, which would be great since it's a long walk. Tomorrow, he’ll get to see a performance of Rent (for a discount) because the percussion professor is playing in it. Mark’s audition is on Saturday, so if you think of him, pray for it to go well.


Besides helping him get ready to go, I’ve been working on my final projects for school and trying to plan ahead for my classes. I’ve decided to design and incorporate a blog activity for the 108 classes, which I can document and describe for one of my L2 technology class projects. I’ve spent a lot of time this week working out the details and doing some reading on the topic. I think it’s almost ready to go. I’ve also decided to combine my final projects for my two classes. It’ll be on the "digital divide," which is a term used to refer to unequal knowledge of or access to technology, because of age, socioeconomic factors, geography, etc. I’ll build on that by doing a small case study of ESL learners with different levels of digital literacy. I think it’ll be a really interesting project.


I also got my student evaluations from last semester, and was pleased with the positive comments. There are a lot of things I would still change if I were to teach the class again, but it was nice to see that the majority of students thought I was a kind and helpful teacher and that felt like they learned something from the class. Maybe those comments can help me with my job search, if there’s a way for me to pass them along to the potential employers…