first day after spring break

went without any coffee. WHY.

Vegetable Soup

I made a huge batch of vegetable soup on Sunday in our crock pot. Several months ago I made a goal of trying to make a big batch of soup once a week. Other than this week...I think I only did this once. Sigh.

I was happy to use the chicken stock that I froze after Eric and I roasted a chicken. Something feels so right when you aren't wasting anything (we had a couple of old-ish tomatoes too that I wouldn't eat, but made it in the soup too!). I crammed as many fresh vegetables that could possibly fit in one large crock pot, and I added some chopped fresh jalapenos for a little heat.

This week is incredibly busy. I'm giving an exam in all of my classes this week, I desperately need to get my grades set up, and I need to finish writing final exams...but the end of the semester is so close...I'm happier than a student counting down.

P.S. The boyfriend loves this soup too......WIN! (His brussell sprouts and carrots usually end up on my plate.)

doodles for the office

Well, I don't really have anything for ya. We've been doing a lot of cleaning this weekend and last night we went out. I did make some doodles yesterday for my office. Now I'm off to a bbq for a friend's birthday..a bbq on the hottest day of the entire year. I don't know if you can sense my excitement or not.

(We ended up skipping out on the picnic yesterday because of the heat.)

happy friday!

Happy Friday!

Am I ready for classes to begin Monday? Why no, no I am not. I'm trying to quickly put together my syllabi and all that. My office is a disaster because I got approved to move into a much bigger office, so I quit cleaning up my office because I knew I was moving...

I just feel like laying around all day reading instead of getting all of my  stuff together for Monday's classes. I'm reading two books right now: The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch and A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. Diane Ravitch is a really remarkable education historian and educational policy analyst. I've been oblivious to most things happening in education because of how far removed I am from what's happening in the K-12 system. I went to a good high school and never spent any time in any K-12 after I finished high school. Then I began teaching college in South Carolina where most students came from good high schools. My new position here in Austin faces some students who have come from weaker high schools and I also have made good friends with a colleague that taught high school for many years. She really got me thinking about the state of education and recommended this book.

Haddon's book is an easy fiction read. He is the author of The Curious Dog in the Night-Time, which is an adorable book. You could finish it within a few hours. I love that book. I remember one of the exact spots I used to sit on the University of Florida campus reading the book and laughing out loud.

Two of my friends want to start a book club next month. I'm excited. The rules are so far are: (1) you read the book before the get-together at the end of the month (2) the get-together must have wine (3) there must be food inspired by something in the book.

Have a good weekend. I need to go work on my syllabi...

Spoiled Students

My summer class is small enough to get my baking leftovers! We're about half way through the summer course right now. The class meets every day (Mon-Fri) and I'm starting to run out of ideas to stay perked up during the class since I see them so often. I try to bring in a little math puzzle for us to talk about half-way through the class to break up the lesson and homework monotony. Having a lesson and then having them work on worksheets or homework in groups isn't giving us enough variety anymore. On a positive note, I'm starting to leave the office much earlier now. I'm only getting paid for teaching one course, but I was staying and working in my office for half a day...way more than I was getting paid. Not that I care much about the hours vs. pay, but I have so much things I'd like to do at home.

The cupcakes are from this recipe.

seriously.

happy friday (and last day of teaching!)

Ah, today is the last day of class. This week has been so busy. Students are continually streaming in and out of my office. So many are always convinced that a miracle can happen during the last week or so of the semester when they haven't cared about the class previously.

Next week finals! Then a break. (I am teaching a summer class though.)

HAPPY FRIDAY

P.S. Sorry for a lack of posts. I've been swamped at work helping to hire someone new and wrap up my semester and Eric and I have had several things on our calendars in the evenings.

FRIDAY

YESSSS FRIDAY! What a long week. I got observed in my classroom on Tuesday, and it couldn't have been much worse. My students worked on a group worksheet with some challenging problems and then I asked each group to explain the correct answer. ONE out of the five groups got their problem right, and their explanations were so off base. It was embarrassing. I would ask prompting questions to have them get on track to get the right answer and they couldn't answer my basic questions. I thought some of the brightest students in the class could save the rest of the class at times, but even they failed me that day. Sigh. They are one of my weakest classes I have taught so I try not to take some of what happens to heart.

A highlight of my week was going to Jeffrey's with Eric, Kathy, and her boyfriend Chris. We decided to go because it's Restaurant Week in Austin, making dinner there a little more affordable. (Jeffrey's is, by the way, rumored to be George Bush's favorite restaurant in Austin.) The food was delicious. I had the Crispy Oysters Split appetizer, the Flounder Pecan Meunièr entree, and the Passionfruit & White Chocolate Semifreddo dessert. Everything was delicious. One of the appetizers didn't make it out, and when it did, it was the wrong one (which we didn't even say anything, but they figured it out.) They brought out the right appetizer and later another small mistake happened (not sure what it was), and the manager came over and personally apologized to us and let us know she would be sending us glasses of champagne and an extra dessert. They sent out all of that, AND a beautiful cheese plate too! We were so incredibly stuffed that we couldn't even eat the cheese plate, but they boxed up all of our leftovers for us. We had a great time and I was genuinely impressed by how great and personable our experience was.

I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend. I hope you have one too.

Happy Last Week of Teaching

Yeah, that's right. This is the last week of classes for me! Of course final exams are next week, so I'll be here everyday for the same hours, but my last lecture for the semester will be given this Friday!

This semester has gone by so quickly. Sorry for not posting much; I've been really busy.

I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving. I met up with my family in Louisiana and even my aunt from St. Louis was there!

Happy Friday!

oops

I missed Happy Friday.

This week has been incredibly busy with work. But, I did manage to make two videos. For one of the math classes I teach (the one designed for Humanities majors- who will never take any more math), I made a video for each section to show the last day of class.

The story behind these are: A student's grade in this class is based solely on exams and the final, so we offer quite a bit of extra credit to help cushion their grade since we don't grade homework or have quizzes. As an easy extra credit, I let my students make a video and one of the only requirements was to include at least one math topic from our class. Funny videos were strongly encouraged.

In return, I decided to make two cartoons videos for them (one for each section). Each is tailored to the inside jokes of that particular section, so some clips of the videos may not make sense.

section 1's video:



section 2's video:



enjoy.

stamps and spilled water.

I have a habit of leaving glasses of water on the floor all over the house. I knock over a glass of water beside my bed, in the living room, or in the dining room every couple days. Today the glass of water was acting as a paper weight on the exams I was grading while I sat in the sunshine. Of course, when I got up, I knocked it over and saturated the entire stack.

So what do you do when you feel bad about handing a student back a crinkled exam? Make a cute apology stamp. :D

I snapped another picture of my office while I was in there. I made the paintings on the wall.

One of my favorite students requested that I bake the class cookies one day. So I did, and brought them in, and of course the student who requested them was not there that day! I don't remember him ever missing class. And then my 2:30 class found out from someone that I baked the other class cookies, so they were jealous, and now I owe another class a batch of cookies.

These are pumpkin with cream cheese frosting. My mom bakes better ones, but these were still good. [ recipe ]

Ashley's bridal shower was last weekend and I did the worst wrapping job ever. I blame part of it on the paper though. So the night before I was franticly trying to figure some way to make it look better....the only thing I had around was white tissue paper, so I did this to the top..just like elementary school projects with the tissue paper squares and elmer's glue. The present turned out really cute!

late this morning, my TA from UNIV 110 showed up at my office and gave me a cupcake she made! Somehow she knew I was thinking of cupcakes earlier in the morning? :)

grading.

Grading essays. This is so foreign to me.

In other news, I am really bummed to not be able to audit a ceramics course this semester. I was going to have lots of weird clay objects for you to laugh at here on the blog, and now I won't. I also wanted to make the wedding people for on top of Brad & Jamie's wedding cake. boo.