Friday Five

1. TAing is hard. Especially TAing for an intensive summer course. Two and one half hours of lecture in the morning, prep work and office hours, then an hour of discussion in the afternoon. Plus more prep work and reading when I get home. I'm exhausted every day. And then I spend all weekend reading and prepping for the next week. This weekend I have the added fun of reviewing their paper proposals, preparing for my guest lecture next week, and fielding inane questions about Monday's midterm: "How should I study for the test?" Um, you should review the detailed study guide that I gave you. Lord. And I have a feeling I'll have lots of unhappy campers coming to my office hours next week when they get back their proposals with a "Not acceptable. Redo." comment. Because despite specifically telling them---in the syllabus and during discussion---that they needed to submit a 3-5 sentence summary that included a specific research question, at least half of them turned in a vague one sentence proposal along the lines of "I plan to write about AIDS in Southern Africa." Ugh. And at least half of them turned in the proposal late. Also, didn't really think that I needed to specify that the proposal should be type written, but apparently I did.

2. But then just when I had decided that I'd had enough of lame excuses and half-assed work, the universe decided to remind me that we all have our off days. I had a meeting this morning with the professor teaching the course to go over the midterm exam questions. I got a late start to the day, then mixed up the bus schedule, and missed the bus I should have taken. Or at least I thought I had missed it, so I went to get a different bus. And while waiting for that one, I saw the bus I wanted go by. Then the one I was waiting for was late. I decided I could save some time by transfering to a second bus along the way, but then got mixed up on the bus routes and wound up missing the second bus---even though the driver absolutely saw me running to catch the bus. Bastard. And in the end I was almost 20 minutes late for my meeting, with the lame excuse that I got mixed up on the bus routes.

3. An update on my back, because I know you've been losing sleep over this: Better but still not great. I still get stiff and sore if I sit for too long, and I have a shooting pain down my left buttock. But I'm not having to hyperdose on ibuprofen to get through the day. So, improvement. But still frustrating because I haven't been able to start sailing lessons or get back into running.

4. I think Rowen, however, may be working some kind of voodoo to keep my back sore because the one thing that seems to help the most is long, gentle walks, particularly along the soft, dirt path at the dog p-a-r-k. We've been going there frequently.

5. We're supposed to have a rainy weekend, although we were supposed to have a rainy afternoon today and that never materialized. Which had I known, I would have organized some Terrace time. Although it's just as well that I came home, because I really was exhausted today and took two naps this afternoon. But anyway, I'm actually hoping for rain this weekend because in addition to all the TA work I need to do, I also have several craft projects that I want to work on, including knitting a blanket and sweater for my nephew (and he's growing like a weed---he's already off the height charts!) and sewing a tote bag for myself. Of course, I also have a pile of novels---including a new mystery novel that I bought this afternoon---and magazines, and a weekend curled up with a pile of non-academic reading sounds really nice. Even though, really, I'll be spending my weekend with the Nuer and their dilemmas. Bah.