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corrielleAnd by "miles" I mean "a huge pile of essays and portfolios."
In all honesty, I had more success keeping on top of my grading this semester than I have in semesters past, and all I have to do right now are recently turned in projects, and with just a bit of willpower and steady, everyday chipping away at the pile, I should be able to get all of the research essays and portfolios done by the time my finals roll around. My final for my intermediate composition class is on Monday, and my lit class final is Tuesday. We've already had our last "regular" class meetings, and I'm happy with how things went. I required participation in class portfolio readings in all of my classes this time around, and I think that my students got a lot out of the experience of sharing their work with their peers and hearing the "best work" of others. I had some GOOD work this semester, and many of my students chose to read very well-written, moving pieces of writing. I'm proud of them, and it's hard not to be a little proud of myself for creating an environment where they could produce such work and feel safe sharing it.
Today, I'm hoping to power through my lit class research papers and my composition portfolios. Tomorrow, I'll tackle more portfolios and the beginnings of my Ad Analysis essays for my (still running) basic composition class at LA Mission. If I keep it up, by the time my first final meets on Monday, I should have everything for that class done and be on my way to finishing everything for my class whose final is on Tuesday.
I know my schedule for next semester already, and for the summer as well. For summer session, I've got an English 28 class and an English 101 class back to back. About 10 of my students signed up for 28 are people I already know from my 21 classes, so that should make things easier. In the fall, I'll be teaching English 21 and English 101 at LA Mission, which is great. I only had one Mission class this semester, and adding that extra course, while it will be a lot of work, will also help me to pack some cash away in savings. I'll also be teaching English V03 (basic comp) and English V01B (Intro to Lit) at Ventura, which makes me really happy. I taught 1B this semester, and had a great time doing it, though there are a ton of things I'm going to do differently next time, the most significant of which is read different novels. I've taught The Awakening every other time I've had this course, and while lots of my women students love it, most of the guys hate it. So... next time we're doing something completely different. We're going to do some dystopian literature, and I ordered Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale in the cheapest editions I could find. Both novels are really fun to read and are full of interesting issues to discuss. So... we'll see how it goes. I just made a ton of new work for myself since I'll have to make lesson plans and class powerpoints for the new selections, but I can still re-use a lot of the other stuff I made for last semester. I think it will be worth it for the bump in student interest I think these novels are going to get me.
This past week, our landlords paid to have our pool resurfaced. The who process was astonishingly fast and easy. The contractors left a pump at our house for us to plug in and drain our pool during the night on Sunday, they started construction on Monday, finished yesterday, and started refilling the pool with our garden hose last night. It's about two thirds of the way there as I speak. We apparently can't swim in it until the Thursday before Memorial Day to give the new surface and the new water time to adjust. Anyhow, I'm happy that this happened... no more weird cracks in the bottom of the shallow end are a good thing.
My squash plants all got HUGE! Every one of them is putting off a ton of flowers, though the green zucchini seem to be having more luck getting pollinated than my yellow variety. (Or maybe they just grow faster... I'm not sure.) I went outside to check on them this morning, and I found that while the goings-on with the pool were happening, one of my zucchini fruits had a growth spurt and looks ready to eat! I think I'm going to pick it (carefully... need to find out how to do that) and have it for lunch or dinner. From the looks of things, in the next couple of weeks I'm going to start approaching the point of "too many squash." When that happens, I'm going to give it away to everyone who will take it and see if there's a local food bank that takes fresh produce. We've already eaten some of the lettuce Rae planted in a salad, along with the uninvited but not necessarily unwanted purslane that had sprung up all over the place. Purslane is a great little plant, apparently, and though it's considered a weed by some, it's got a ton of nutrients and tastes pretty good in salads. It's got a lemony zing to it, and it's crunchy. Our thyme is flowering, which is apparently not a great thing, but Rae's mom said we could pinch off the flowers and preserve the flavor. My nasturtiums are putting out a ton of leaves, but no flowers to speak of yet. One of them finally sprouted in the vegetable part of the garden, and it's slowly but surely establishing itself. Hopefully a month from now I'll have some of the pretty flowers that were on the package.
Though things have gone pretty well with my first try gardening, I have had one big problem: powdery mildew on my squash. It's this evil white stuff that leaves feathery white blotches on the leaves and eventually coats the whole plant. It won't kill my plants, thankfully, or make the vegetables they produce unsafe to eat, and it apparently doesn't cross species lines, so my other herbs and plants won't get infected, but it does make the plant less healthy and less likely to produce big leaves and bit fruit. I didn't know what it was or have time to deal with it until it had already spread to all but two of my squash bushes (yes, they qualify as bushes now!), but now that I've had some time to do some research on organic, safe ways of fighting it, I've sprayed some neem oil solution all over the leaves, and I'm going to do it again this week. (The directions say that for already infected plants, every seven days is what will work best...) It seems to be working somewhat. I don't see any new infection on the new leaves, even on my plants where the old leaves were REALLY bad, and it doesn't seem to have spread to either of my plants that have so far resisted it.
I think my roses have a pretty bad case of rust. I need to get out and remove the infected leaves and prune back some of the stems that grew in an awkward way that the bush can't support. Pruning them back heavily in the late winter made them put out new growth like CRAZY, but some of the stems are getting top-heavy and falling over and getting tangled with other bushes.
Look at me... turning into someone who goes on and on about her garden... I NEVER thought that would happen in a million years. It's been really fun, actually... going out in the morning and checking on things, finding out about the various bugs I saw crawling around (immature ladybugs are WEIRD looking... I almost killed one thinking it was a pest before I went inside, looked it up, and left it alone to mature and eat aphids to its heart's content), watering when the soil dried out, and keeping the useless weeds and bermuda grass from taking food and water from my useful plants. I've learned a lot about what goes into good soil and growing good food, and about patience and being close to the land that puts out food for us.
In fandom news...
Almost through with Deadwood. Two or three episodes left. AAAAAAAAH! I don't want it to end, but I want to know what's going to happen! It's the great dilemma of watchers of TV on DVD. I still love Seth Bullock with... a whole lot of love. Rae and I have captured some wonderfully angry pauses as we've gone through the show... Seth's "I really want to kill someone right now, and it's taking every shred of my being to stop myself from doing it" face is PRICELESS, and all the more so when it appears at completely inappropriate times, like at the dinner table. Al is still a grade-A bastard, but I've come to have a great deal of respect for him as well. I much prefer him to other grade-A bastards on the show. *coughHEARSTcough* Still, I love how this show gives all of the characters their little bits of humanity. It's complicated and darn fascinating to watch.
Still not caught up on Supernatural. The last episode I saw was the "The Devil You Know," which brought back Crowley, who I LOVE to death. Mark Sheppard = WIN. Tonight when Rae gets home we're hopefully going to watch last week's that we missed before the big finale.
Bones... did something right. Angela/Hodgins for the win.
Still haven't seen "Vampires in Venice" and WANT TO. So very much. Mat Smith is delightful, and despite my misgivings about the last few minutes of "Flesh and Stone," I adore his relationship with Amy Pond.
Trying to catch up on the awesome RH rewatch... maybe I'll rope an unsuspecting room mate into sitting down with me in a couple of hours after I've graded some papers.
In all honesty, I had more success keeping on top of my grading this semester than I have in semesters past, and all I have to do right now are recently turned in projects, and with just a bit of willpower and steady, everyday chipping away at the pile, I should be able to get all of the research essays and portfolios done by the time my finals roll around. My final for my intermediate composition class is on Monday, and my lit class final is Tuesday. We've already had our last "regular" class meetings, and I'm happy with how things went. I required participation in class portfolio readings in all of my classes this time around, and I think that my students got a lot out of the experience of sharing their work with their peers and hearing the "best work" of others. I had some GOOD work this semester, and many of my students chose to read very well-written, moving pieces of writing. I'm proud of them, and it's hard not to be a little proud of myself for creating an environment where they could produce such work and feel safe sharing it.
Today, I'm hoping to power through my lit class research papers and my composition portfolios. Tomorrow, I'll tackle more portfolios and the beginnings of my Ad Analysis essays for my (still running) basic composition class at LA Mission. If I keep it up, by the time my first final meets on Monday, I should have everything for that class done and be on my way to finishing everything for my class whose final is on Tuesday.
I know my schedule for next semester already, and for the summer as well. For summer session, I've got an English 28 class and an English 101 class back to back. About 10 of my students signed up for 28 are people I already know from my 21 classes, so that should make things easier. In the fall, I'll be teaching English 21 and English 101 at LA Mission, which is great. I only had one Mission class this semester, and adding that extra course, while it will be a lot of work, will also help me to pack some cash away in savings. I'll also be teaching English V03 (basic comp) and English V01B (Intro to Lit) at Ventura, which makes me really happy. I taught 1B this semester, and had a great time doing it, though there are a ton of things I'm going to do differently next time, the most significant of which is read different novels. I've taught The Awakening every other time I've had this course, and while lots of my women students love it, most of the guys hate it. So... next time we're doing something completely different. We're going to do some dystopian literature, and I ordered Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale in the cheapest editions I could find. Both novels are really fun to read and are full of interesting issues to discuss. So... we'll see how it goes. I just made a ton of new work for myself since I'll have to make lesson plans and class powerpoints for the new selections, but I can still re-use a lot of the other stuff I made for last semester. I think it will be worth it for the bump in student interest I think these novels are going to get me.
This past week, our landlords paid to have our pool resurfaced. The who process was astonishingly fast and easy. The contractors left a pump at our house for us to plug in and drain our pool during the night on Sunday, they started construction on Monday, finished yesterday, and started refilling the pool with our garden hose last night. It's about two thirds of the way there as I speak. We apparently can't swim in it until the Thursday before Memorial Day to give the new surface and the new water time to adjust. Anyhow, I'm happy that this happened... no more weird cracks in the bottom of the shallow end are a good thing.
My squash plants all got HUGE! Every one of them is putting off a ton of flowers, though the green zucchini seem to be having more luck getting pollinated than my yellow variety. (Or maybe they just grow faster... I'm not sure.) I went outside to check on them this morning, and I found that while the goings-on with the pool were happening, one of my zucchini fruits had a growth spurt and looks ready to eat! I think I'm going to pick it (carefully... need to find out how to do that) and have it for lunch or dinner. From the looks of things, in the next couple of weeks I'm going to start approaching the point of "too many squash." When that happens, I'm going to give it away to everyone who will take it and see if there's a local food bank that takes fresh produce. We've already eaten some of the lettuce Rae planted in a salad, along with the uninvited but not necessarily unwanted purslane that had sprung up all over the place. Purslane is a great little plant, apparently, and though it's considered a weed by some, it's got a ton of nutrients and tastes pretty good in salads. It's got a lemony zing to it, and it's crunchy. Our thyme is flowering, which is apparently not a great thing, but Rae's mom said we could pinch off the flowers and preserve the flavor. My nasturtiums are putting out a ton of leaves, but no flowers to speak of yet. One of them finally sprouted in the vegetable part of the garden, and it's slowly but surely establishing itself. Hopefully a month from now I'll have some of the pretty flowers that were on the package.
Though things have gone pretty well with my first try gardening, I have had one big problem: powdery mildew on my squash. It's this evil white stuff that leaves feathery white blotches on the leaves and eventually coats the whole plant. It won't kill my plants, thankfully, or make the vegetables they produce unsafe to eat, and it apparently doesn't cross species lines, so my other herbs and plants won't get infected, but it does make the plant less healthy and less likely to produce big leaves and bit fruit. I didn't know what it was or have time to deal with it until it had already spread to all but two of my squash bushes (yes, they qualify as bushes now!), but now that I've had some time to do some research on organic, safe ways of fighting it, I've sprayed some neem oil solution all over the leaves, and I'm going to do it again this week. (The directions say that for already infected plants, every seven days is what will work best...) It seems to be working somewhat. I don't see any new infection on the new leaves, even on my plants where the old leaves were REALLY bad, and it doesn't seem to have spread to either of my plants that have so far resisted it.
I think my roses have a pretty bad case of rust. I need to get out and remove the infected leaves and prune back some of the stems that grew in an awkward way that the bush can't support. Pruning them back heavily in the late winter made them put out new growth like CRAZY, but some of the stems are getting top-heavy and falling over and getting tangled with other bushes.
Look at me... turning into someone who goes on and on about her garden... I NEVER thought that would happen in a million years. It's been really fun, actually... going out in the morning and checking on things, finding out about the various bugs I saw crawling around (immature ladybugs are WEIRD looking... I almost killed one thinking it was a pest before I went inside, looked it up, and left it alone to mature and eat aphids to its heart's content), watering when the soil dried out, and keeping the useless weeds and bermuda grass from taking food and water from my useful plants. I've learned a lot about what goes into good soil and growing good food, and about patience and being close to the land that puts out food for us.
In fandom news...
Almost through with Deadwood. Two or three episodes left. AAAAAAAAH! I don't want it to end, but I want to know what's going to happen! It's the great dilemma of watchers of TV on DVD. I still love Seth Bullock with... a whole lot of love. Rae and I have captured some wonderfully angry pauses as we've gone through the show... Seth's "I really want to kill someone right now, and it's taking every shred of my being to stop myself from doing it" face is PRICELESS, and all the more so when it appears at completely inappropriate times, like at the dinner table. Al is still a grade-A bastard, but I've come to have a great deal of respect for him as well. I much prefer him to other grade-A bastards on the show. *coughHEARSTcough* Still, I love how this show gives all of the characters their little bits of humanity. It's complicated and darn fascinating to watch.
Still not caught up on Supernatural. The last episode I saw was the "The Devil You Know," which brought back Crowley, who I LOVE to death. Mark Sheppard = WIN. Tonight when Rae gets home we're hopefully going to watch last week's that we missed before the big finale.
Bones... did something right. Angela/Hodgins for the win.
Still haven't seen "Vampires in Venice" and WANT TO. So very much. Mat Smith is delightful, and despite my misgivings about the last few minutes of "Flesh and Stone," I adore his relationship with Amy Pond.
Trying to catch up on the awesome RH rewatch... maybe I'll rope an unsuspecting room mate into sitting down with me in a couple of hours after I've graded some papers.