Summer Days

I don't know how it is where you are, but it sure feels like summer here! We've been at or near record temperatures this weekend in the mid-90s. Thankfully, our apartment complex's pool opened up just in time for this little heat wave, so I've been enjoying that lovely amenity! I came to this pool last year as a guest of a friend who lives here, but it's kind of fun to be able to go or not go totally on my own timetable. I've also enjoyed being able to "pay it forward" by inviting another friend to join me.

Other than that, I don't think there's anything too interesting to report. We're still enjoying the new place (although it is considerably warmer than our garden-level apartment was, so on a day like this the A/C runs constantly). We managed to get out to see the Avengers at our inexpensive local theater. I've been reading a lot...quite a leisurely summer so far! We still don't know how the rest of the summer will shake out, so I'm just trying to relax and go with the flow, which seems to be working for now. :-)

More Pics

We've been working hard to get settled in over the last few days, and we're really close now! Things seem to be unpacked and tidy enough to take some more pics, but you'll notice a few stray boxes, and Mark's practice room really isn't finished yet. I also haven't unpacked my curio cabinet, put up pictures, or finished organizing our DVDs and CDs. Overall, though, we're getting settled. And, with a few small exceptions, I'm really happy with this place. So, here's a look at how we've got it set up (pardon the weird lighting in a few...I guess I'm no photographer!).

View of the living room from the front door.

View of the living room from the dining room.

View of the living and dining rooms from the patio door.

Our lovely balcony.

Dining room and kitchen.

Even though the kitchen is still galley style, it's considerably wider than our last one, which makes it a lot nicer!

Mark's office/game room (there's a TV in there, too).

Mark's practice room--still needs curtains and a bit of organizing.

Hall bath--looking better with the shower curtain up!

Master bedroom.

Master bathroom.

  So, what do you think? Want a closer look? Come for a visit! :-)

The New Place

Today was a big day! Mark had school stuff all day (juries, presentations, etc), but I got to pick up our keys, pay our rent, and start moving in to our new place! I worked on my own in the morning, but a friend helped me out in the afternoon. By the time we finished up at 4pm, I/we had moved a total of 4 carloads over and unpacked at set up the kitchen (well, most of it...I kept some things at our old place to use for the rest of the week). I'm pretty tired, but it was fun to take Mark over after he was done at school and show him what I'd gotten done. Before I started bringing stuff in, I took some pics. Once we're all settled in, I'll take more. But, for those of you eager to see how the apartment looks, here you go!

When you walk in the door, you can go left into the living room:

or right into the kitchen.

 There's a hallway that leads to the bedrooms, with a hall bath on the right side.














On the left, there are two small bedrooms.




























 On the right, our master with a small bathroom.




























So that's the tour!

Moving on up!

It doesn't feel quite real to me yet, but Friday was the last day of classes. Since my department doesn't do final exams, that means I'm almost done with my work for the semester. I can't believe how quickly this spring has gone by; it's equally wild to me that we've now been in BG for almost two years. So far in our married life, we've moved to a new apartment every two years, and it turns out this year is no exception. Later this week, we'll be moving again, this time into a nice 3 bedroom in a quiet complex with great amenities. It's pretty exciting to think of living at the new place, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by all that needs to get done in the next week. Stay tuned for pics of the new place!

TESOL 2012

Well, it's been over a week now since TESOL, so I better post an update! Overall, I think the conference went really well. Our travel, though complex, went about as smoothly as it possibly could have, and it seemed like everyone in our group got along well. We're a very collegial bunch, but having 5 ladies in one room could have become tricky. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any major issues.

The two presentations I was part of went pretty well, although the humongous crowd at one made me a bit flustered, so I don't think it was my best presentation ever. Still, we had a really good response from the people who attended. From what I heard, the other presentation that I wasn't in also went well. I was able to go to some really great sessions, and I came home with a a lot of things to think more about and follow up on. In particular, I'm reading up on work by Eli Hinkel, who was my favorite speaker from this year. I saw her twice, and not only was she talking about issues that were really relevant to my current teaching situation, but she was also hilarious--a totally unexpected perk.

Actually, the coolest part of this conference was the fact that I do have a specific teaching situation to apply what I've learned. The last two times I attended, even though I was teaching first-year comp at the time, I felt more like the conference was a chance to explore any and all areas of interest, which meant that I was attending sessions on all kinds of topics--immigration, adult ed, writing, etc. And I loved that, but it was really great this time to focus in on the kinds of sessions that were about issues I'm currently thinking about in my own teaching. As a result, there were many connections between the different sessions I went to, and I've been thinking a lot about how the things I learned (and the things I want to study further) can inform my teaching, especially as I'll be planning classes for the fall.

The other neat thing about this conference was having the chance to share it with so many colleagues--sometimes we went to the same sessions and discussed them; other times we went our separate ways and compared notes later. And besides interacting on that professional level, it was really fun to get to know them better personally. I also got to meet up with one friend from grad school--seeing her was really great, too.

So, I've got a few pictures to post, but I'm missing a big chunk of the trip because I had misplaced my camera (thought I lost it, but thankfully I didn't!). I might get some pics from a colleague to fill in the gaps, but for now, here are a few highlights that I did manage to capture on film (so to speak).

At the convention:

 Plenary from William Labov--a really famous sociolinguist.

These weird blue cutout people were out in one of the main hallways. We thought they were kind of lame, which is what I'm trying to express with my own weird face and body language. Turns out, they look cooler in the photo than in person.

Some of my colleagues and me outside the convention center.

Around Philly:

There's a walking tour of murals in the convention center area--we saw about 4 of them. This was one of my favorites.

A cool old church. There's another awesome mural right next door, but I didn't get any pics of that one.

That's the capitol building in the background.

 Another pretty church.

At a lovely park with the kids--a friend and I were kidsitting while mom and dad presented.

Food:

Our hotel had free breakfast, and some awesome freshly baked soft pretzels in the afternoons. So dinners were the main exciting meals.

Thai on our first night there. Our hotel was practically next door to both the convention center and China town.

The complimentary cheese and meat trays we received at the swanky "Parc" restaurant in the French Quarter after we waited two hours to be seated (when they had told us it would be 40 minutes).

 My entree--gnocchi with parsnip puree, mushrooms, and Brussels sprouts. Tasty and pricy.

Another nice group shot!

All in all, I think we had quite a good adventure! Now, it's back to the real world--only 3 weeks left of the semester. It'll be a race to the finish, as usual.

Heading to Philly!

The TESOL International Convention is this week, and I'll be there! I'll be presenting twice, once about a cool service learning video project, and once about teaching grammar and vocabulary with games. The second is a repeat (with some adaptations) of a presentation from OH TESOL back in November, the first is new. I'll be traveling and presenting with 5 colleagues from my program plus another woman who used to be the director of our program (she transitioned to a new job at another university just as I was starting at BGSU). The travel logistics have been a bit complicated, and there's a lot of prep involved (not just for the presentations, but in terms of figuring out how to keep my students busy while I'm gone). But, in the end, I think it'll be really great. It's actually kind of a cool milestone for me, because the last time I went to TESOL was two years ago, in Boston, and at that convention, I met three of the ladies I'm traveling with this year. They told me all about their program, and I was really hopeful to get a job there. Here I am two years later, not only working in the program, but collaborating with them on conference presentations! The last two years really have gone by quickly, and this moment of reflection has left me feeling very blessed. It'll be a crazy week, but perhaps I'll have some pictures to post at the end of it!

Spring Break!

I'm a bit surprised that it's been a month since my last post...that's a bit longer than I thought! I guess things have been really busy around here, and maybe there haven't been many exciting things going on. We're just plugging away through the semester. I guess one thing is that we're planning to move to a different apartment complex when our current lease is up this summer. The new place will be bigger, and the complex is completely smoke-free, with a quieter group of residents. They also have some nice amenities like pools (indoor and outdoor), a fitness room, and a meeting room. I really resisted the idea of moving at first, just because it's so much work, but I think once we're all settled in at the new place, we'll be really glad we did it.

This week is Spring Break, and to start things off, Mark and I decided to get out of town for a few days. We spent the weekend in Ann Arbor, MI, which is a nice college town about an hour from here (it's much bigger than BG). I forgot to take my camera, which was really disappointing, so I don't have any pictures to share. Our time there was pretty low-key, especially because the weather was much colder than we expected and there weren't any music/theater/arts performances going on the weekend we were there. (We picked our travel dates based on the best rate we could get at the hotel, so we later discovered it was a pretty quiet weekend as far as events go). We ended up exploring the town through a little "driving tour" courtesy of Mark's navigational skills with a city map. That allowed us to see it without having to stroll around in the cold/snowy weather. We also enjoyed eating out, shopping, and just taking it easy. I think for me, the most important thing was to take a step back from our hectic lives and spend some quality time together, which we certainly did.

Now that we're back in town, we're dealing with a long list of to-dos, which does include relaxing a bit more, but it seems that it will be a busy break for us. We did our taxes today and met with our insurance agent. We've also got some other things to do around the house, along the lines of spring cleaning. I've also got school work that needs to be done, but I haven't been ready to tackle that yet. In the end, these breaks always feel like they go by too fast. After break, though, we've only got 7 weeks left in the semester, and I know that time will fly by as well. Our summer plans are mostly up in the air still, but I hope they'll come together soon.

So, that's the scoop. I'll try to think of things to post a bit more regularly in the coming weeks! :-)