A Break from Grading and Class

Halloween and the past two weekends have blown by. In addition to massive grading, I've been busy with MayMay. For Halloween she was a ladybug; we were harried parents.

We've discovered that MayMay loves jumping in the inflatable things. Unfortunately, she is not much of a jumper yet. She was more often pummeled by the other kids, but she yelled "jump!" the whole time she was in it.

We took a weekend to go to the Manitoba Children's Museum in Winnipeg. MayMay was fascinated with the train. She could play with buttons and levers and sit in the conductor's seat. She played with plastic food in the galley and made us breakfast. She also got to play with water, rocks, sand, pipes, a VW Bug, fun mirrors, slides, etc.

Then we went to the zoo. Yes, it was chilly, but no crowds and the animals were quite active.

MayMay saw this bad boy and yelled, "It's a puma!" Oh, you have to love Go, Diego! Go!

At the hotel, we had access to a kiddie pool, a hot tub, and a giant water slide. I've discovered that I hate dark, loop-dee-loop spaces filled with rushing water. I was certain that the local mounties and paramedics would get to practice their de-fib equipment and skills.

MayMay was not much better with water. We haven't really had an opportunity to have her swim in large bodies of water, so she was nervous but loved it. We bought her a new life jacket for the occasion. She can't balance herself though and keeps flipping over. Now, though, she wants a nightly swim in our hot tub. It's hard to say no and it's kind of nice to get more use out of it.

So this week it's been time to refocus. My accelerated class is nearly over; Wednesday night was workshopping of rough argument/research drafts. In two weeks, they turn in final drafts. The Gateway section of 1101 is just at the drafting stage; today they turned in their research notes. In 1102, the online class is working on their exam and poetry essays, and in 0050, students just wrote their in-class essay and tomorrow we discuss the next essay. There's a lot yet to do!

Yes, the week was filled with possible blog-worthy topics.

No, I had no time to do it.

Before I dive into the grading for the week, I spend a minute or two surfing other blogs. This is one post on plagiarism I found today that is a refreshing point-of-view from a student.

Is it possible?

Has another week already gone by? Where did it go? My week looked a little something like this:

Go to neighbors for BBQ Saturday night; spend most of weekend getting online and hybrid course materials created and posted. Kick hubby and baby out of house for most of the day Monday in order to work.

Tuesday: work on online/hybrid classes in the morning to finish the work from last night. Go to HEC for one class. Go back to office to make copies since some textbooks are MIA. Must also make copies to give my 0050 class tomorrow. Go to hubby's volleyball game to watch our rugrat and another guy's. An hour later, I'm home, reading to the little one and tucking her in before logging on and reading posts and emails again.

Wednesday: class at 10, run to another at 11. Have lunch and check/answer emails for an hour. Office hours from 1-2:30 (spend time grading, prepping for next classes, working on the student anthology project I'm co-chairing, answering emails from students, reading discussion posts, watching the blogs, etc). Instead of leaving, I stick around to get all this done and then I ran to get pizza and pop for the Phi Theta Kappa meeting (I'm one of the two advisors) at 6. Finish office work (stop might be a better word) at 7 and head home. Meet hubby and daughter at home. She goes to bed at 8, and I start work again.

Thursday: go into office at 11 to get some work done. Meet with Dean at 2. Rush to HEC, and in the middle of my process lecture--the laptop dies. Clearly, I need a new battery. Afterwards, I lug all my stuff to the Jeep and think how nice--I'll be able to head home soon. But first, I must write a model blog post for the students in that class and hope they start to post soon instead of waiting until the last minute (as of this posting, it's looking grim). Somehow I spend another two hours in office copying pages for students since books have not come in as expected and then go home. I find out father-in-law is in town to take us out to dinner; I decline in favor of some quiet time at home (and to get some diagnostic tests graded for 0050 students). Prep for Wednesday class. Stay up way too late.

Friday: drag self out of bed. Have class at 10 and 11. Lunch at noon with hubby. Work on anthology project, Phi Theta Kappa projects, read my favorite blogs, create tutoring schedules and lessons for students. Try to leave office at 4 but get stopped by student wanting someone to look at a paper she has due soon. Leave at 4:30, run to daycare, take baby to grocery store, get home and put on Dora so I can make supper, feed family, run to post office, run after daughter for a few hours. Am currently blogging while baby plays musical destinations (wants to be in bed, then in living room airchair, then back in bed, turn on Dora, turn off Dora, turn on Veggie Tales CD, turn on light/off light, etc).

Tomorrow I meet my sister in DL for a car swap (she will detail my Jeep while my hubby installs her car stereo). I get to drive her truck this weekend (unfortunately, she sports a window decal reading "If it ain't country, it ain't music." Oh, gross! GAAA. I will jam a Rage Against the Machine CD in her player and correct her decal with a mighty red marker. :) The rest of the weekend looks much like last weekend minus the fun parts.

So far, I'm just summarizing the weeks; I hope to be able to post reactions to individual classes soon! So far, though, 2 of the 3 classes I meet with F2F are pretty quiet and I've yet to get to know the various personalities. Nor have we launched into any philosophical debates :)

Behind the scenes

Classes start Tuesday and I (and my colleagues) are amped. We are looking forward to the new school year; we're ready to do what we do! We've been working long hours to prepare syllabi, answering quesitons about our classes and enrollment, attending meetings in DL, Fergus and on campus, working on committees to improve what we do and what the campus does to make students feel welcome and successful, and preparing for the first week of classes.

The week begins with a bang: Monday is New Student Orientation. Faculty will meet new students and help get them acquainted with the campus and our services. Tuesday is not only the first day of campus classes, but we also have orientation for students enrolled in our new accelerated courses.

My own to do list:

finalize 4 completely different syllabi and copy them Monday
make sure my two online course sites on D2L are ready to go Tuesday morning (this includes a lot of proofreadings, tweaking of settings, and other mundane details)
get the first day materials ready (create, copy)
try to find time to do a little grocery shopping and to clean my house! I won't have time once classes start :)

I believe my students are:
getting back-to-school supplies (for themselves and for their own kids)
spending time with family and friends
finalizing course registrations and schedules
working as many shifts as they can before classes start
some are moving
etc.