E-mail and distractions

For those of you who e-mail me at my cox.net address, stop it. I never use it. Grab me at gmail instead.

Yeah! I have no messages in my work e-mail account presently. Hooray for me. Why is plowing through my e-mail such a big accomplishment (sad day). Jacob was awake until 11 p.m. tonight. It's 2:27 a.m., and yet my husband is still not home. I hate basketball season. I hate road trips. Tomorrow, we are going to have at least one grouchy child and two parents who did not go to bed. Great way to end the year.

Augh! Anyway, I am going to be productive next week. Tonight was part of laying the ground work. Don't e-mail me unless it's crucial. My mom used to tell us not to call her at work unless we were bleeding. I need one of you clever word people to come up with a similar phrase that would address e-mail usage.

And, no, I did not get my journal finished. I have 26 pages to go.

Library:
I take the boys to the library, and they are on the computers. Jacob told me to pick out some things he might like because I am good at that.

Christmas cards and other holiday jazz

I did not send out Christmas cards this year, but I was happy to receive a hefty pile from friends and family. Several of these cards appeared to come directly from Snapfish.com, which certainly caught my attention. After the debacle that was our family Christmas photo (we totally blame Jared for this), I am still unsure about whether I will send New Year's Cards or not.

As I spend the week home with my two boys, I am surrounded by a seriously messy house and plenty of "Christmas" that still needs to find a home. I have also decided that I want to start the new year, armed with a new journal. I am 29 pages away from finishing the one I began Aug. 18, 2007. The first sentence Jared utters every morning is "Can we play on the Wii? Please?! Please?! I be nice. We not fight today. Promise (bat big blue eyes and look at mom)."

I have two or three or maybe five journals in que, just waiting for me to write the staggering details of my life journey (lol). My grand plan for the day is to lug the boys to the Public Library to hang out in the kid section while I work on writing and picking up another book to read.

I highly, highly, highly recommend reading "Traveling With Pomegranates" by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor. I return in search of another one of Sue's book. I am going to try to stay away from Amazon.com's one click shopping (at least until February!)

Cheers.

Aaauuugghhh:

Household tip for the day. Do not turn on garbage disposal while dish rag is down the hole! And, especially avoid this when your husband is in Las Vegas. :(

Truth:
Be prepared to modify your plan. It'll be good for you.

Or so says my fortune cookie. Haha, really funny.

My friend's said something about seeing a miracle and she thinks they are related!!

Grading and Grace

I find myself in emotional turmoil as I face the grading in my writing courses. If students complete even half of the assignments in my writing classes, they have truly worked hard.

Call me nuts, but I don't know how to teach writing without making students write themselves silly while reading some outstanding writing samples for good measure.

I see the progress as I move through their final portfolios. I hope they realize the growth after they stop throwing darts at my picture.

During my college career, I fell down at the altar of the mighty GPA. As a faculty member, I find myself wanting to help students as much as I can. On the other hand, I find it extremely annoying to lend a helping hand when the student clearly has not met me halfway. It's always such a balancing game.

In the end, I wish that judging writing, dedication and true appreciation of learning was more clear cut. But then again, I am positively thrilled when a struggling hard worker produces prose that almost takes my breath away.

Equal Rights

So I was grading today. Actually that's pretty much all I did today. I was thinking about those students who go online and hunt up and/or buy their assignments.

I was wondering if faculty should not have these same perks. What about a Web site that accepted files that needed to be graded? That would be awesome.

Then as I traveled down the hall to pop a bag of microwave popcorn, I saw a schedule of events from last week, aimed to help students cope with the stress of finals. Well, I felt pretty stressed today. Where are the faculty activities?

easy thank you for the military

shared via an e-mail:

XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING COOL

If you go to this web site, http://www.letssaythanks.com, you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq.

You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the Armed Services.

How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one! It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these?

Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them. This takes just 10 seconds and it's a wonderful way to say thank you.

Thanks for taking to time to support our military!

One class practically in the books

For my senior seminar students, I have news. I am D-O-N-E grading. I just need a wee bit of time in the morning to type scores into my excel file and merge piles of paper (of course, they are already in alpha order as it's one of my classic procrastination techniques.)

Tomorrow, I'll hopefully knock out internships. Then, I'll leave the most time-intensive and grueling for the weekend and Monday. With grades due at 10 a.m. Tuesday, it's quite risky to leave things until then.

More good news. Everyone in the class earned a passing grade in senior seminar with the majority of students bringing home As if my cursory scan is correct.

funny, funny stuff

Font video

I hate e-mail, la la la

That's a new song I am writing. I currently have 14 e-mails, which is awesome. I had 400 yesterday.

So, I didn't do some things (like I need one more thing)

Some people might be wondering if I'm in a coma (I'm not)

Others might wonder why I'm blogging so much today. (Funny story. I have lots of blogs, and I have been working on updating them, too. I also set up my iphone as a blogging device. Now, I can blog directly from my phone. My only complaint is that it does not put a title on the post, and I like titles.)

It posts pics from my phone, too, but it takes forever.

mini update: day three -- no Coke. I can totally do this : O )

Add another card to the list

Pass this on to your church, co-workers, family, and friends. What do you have to lose but 44 cents, what do you have to gain ----------- more than you will ever know.

What a clever idea!
Yes, Christmas cards. This is coming early so that you can get ready to include an important address to your list.

Want to have some fun this CHRISTMAS? Send the ACLU a CHRISTMAS CARD this year.

As they are working so very hard to get rid of the CHRISTMAS part of this holiday, we should all send them a nice, CHRISTIAN card to brighten up their dark, sad, little world..

Make sure it says "Merry Christmas" on it.

Here's the address, just don't be rude or crude. (It's not the Christian way, you know.)

ACLU
125 Broad Street
18th Floor
New York , NY 10004

Two tons of Christmas cards would freeze their operations because they wouldn't know if any were regular mail containing contributions. So spend 44 cents and tell the ACLU to leave Christmas alone. Also tell them that there is no such thing as a " Holiday Tree". . . It's always been called a CHRISTMAS TREE!

For those of you who aren't aware of them, the ACLU, (the American Civil Liberties Union) is the one suing the U.S. Government to take God, Christmas or anything Christian away from view. Help put Christ back in Christmas!

Jacob -- first grade

I am testing.