Wildlife

So... This is a video that my downstairs neighbor (and good friend) took, yesterday morning. It was in our backyard! Scary.

Happy New Year!

Here we are again, another Fall semester. Sometimes it's difficult to believe that I've been in school for over twenty years, I'm only 27! It is strange that for the second semester in that time that I'm the teacher, as well as the student. I can't express what a gratifying experience it is to be a teacher and I hope that I have many more years of it ahead of me. Yet, there's something about this semester that's repelling me a little. I don't know if it's because I'm embarking on what may be my last school year in a while or exactly what. I just have this nagging feeling of sadness. It's like, whatever lies ahead after this year, it's likely that it'll never be like this again. I'll never be the student in the same way I am now, nor the teacher. Even if I were to pursue my PhD, which would be a pretty similar role to what I have now, it will be later and my life will have changed in all sorts of unimaginable ways.

So, cheers to the new year!

Back to School

Doug and I are getting ready to go back to school. Doug is going back for the last time, which I'm sure he's thrilled about. Me, who knows how long I'll be in school? Technically, I'm done Spring semester. Hopefully, I'll be able to find a job in education and won't ever have to leave.

Basically, all we've been doing is cleaning and stocking up on all the essentials. For us, school starting is like a nuclear holocaust. We sort of batten down then hatches and just try to take cover. So the month before school starts we buy paper products, toiletries and even food. We super-clean the house, knowing full well it might be Thanksgiving before it gets a good scrubbing again.

My office keeps doing a rotation of messy to clean during the week as I try to get organized. Finding places for all the books coming in is getting difficult, I'm running out of shelf room. This is why we are a couple with bookshelves everywhere, even our headboard is a bookshelf. I've been planning my class for the last week and that hasn't helped the situation on my desk. As I write lesson plans and lectures I litter the floor around me with notes and all kinds of books. I had all my literary theory books out yesterday, in addition to all my writing guides and things were pretty overwhelming.

I'm starting to put everything back together now and hopefully soon my workspace will make sense again. I don't know much about Doug's office. It's like a treehouse (with a ladder and everything) so I don't do much except poke my head up there every now and again. He's been up there for days getting all his stuff together so that he can graduate in December. He's so much more focused than I am when it comes to that stuff. I just putter around for a while then I pick up a book for a few hours. It's not that I'm not being productive, it's just that I have SO much to do. I think I have five books going right now that I'd like to finish before things start up again. Good luck to me, I doubt it will happen. The terrible thing about being a grad student is that the homework never ends. I should have been doing more reading over the summer... I say that every summer.

So, while I probably won't be posting as many pictures this semester I'm going to try to keep up with what we've got going on. I forecast that the blog will be a bit more about me, since during semester I become very self-centered. I'll try to check in with Doug once a day or so to make sure he's still alive. :)