Tuesday, August 25, 2009

I think I will like Tuesdays this semester

Or at least I really like this one. I slept till 8:30, then a leisurely getting-ready, hopped on a bus at 10:13am and was in my office on campus by 10:30. I read through the very good student papers as I mentioned this morning, then did some random online stuff and chatted with people coming and going. Heated up my lunch, then went to my Writer in the Community class. Ooh, I am so excited about this class! It will be such fun, definitely a challenge, but in a good way. It's kind of a service learning course - in small groups (2 or 3 people) we will run a 10 week writing program in some community setting (nursing home, youth center, prison, etc). We have complete control over how we run the program, and we'll be comparing notes and sharing our experiences as we go, reading a lot of pedagogy, and writing about it. We'll be writing teaching journals AND posting some highlights on a class blog. And we'll be writing a paper at the end evaluating the whole experience, and we have the option of applying to present our papers at conferences and/or submit them for publication somewhere. Super, super cool! The class is also very self-directed; there are a few sites that have ongoing programs from previous years, but we also have the option of researching and setting up new ones. L and I are trying set something with a local women's center. If that doesn't pan out, we'll probably work with LGBT youth somewhere. I'd actually prefer the latter, but since someone in the course already made a contact at the women's center, it seemed easier to start there. So, yeah, super exciting!

Also, because we'll be out in the community at least an hour a week throughout most of the semester, the actually classroom component of the course will be shorter than it is marked on our schedules. It will be about two hours instead of three, which is great, because that means I'll be done around 2:30 and can come home and go running.

Which I also did today. A sweaty, somewhat hilly, four miles. I have not hit a 5 miler yet since living in PA. I was supposed to do one over the weekend and ended up doing 3.5. The weekend before my 5 miles was about 4.5. I've just gotta get into a routine and commit to it, that's all there is to it. I keep promising people I'm coming to OH in October to run the half, so I've gotta get in shape! If I can do another good 4 miles Thursday (like I'm scheduled to) and a shorter run on Friday, then I feel confident about jumping back into my training schedule and going for the full 6 miles on Sunday. At least 5 though - gotta break that boundary!

Tonight, I have some reading/homework/prep for tomorrow's teaching. And I'm nervous about the workshop class; first class meeting is tomorrow. Oh, and my loan finally disbursed tonight, but they're telling me it'll be at least 3 days till it's in my account! Hopefully that means Friday so I can buy my freaking books! Ugh, money....

But this is a happy post. So happy Tuesday thoughts. The weather was great, the student writing was good, class was good, the run was good, it's all good :)

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