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scottahillI'm waiting around for Jen so I thought I would ramble.
My June class is just about over, huzzah! I had four students take the final exam today, and the rest are taking it tomorrow morning. It is so nice to not have to plan a lecture for tomorrow. I get a whole week and a half off, too! Wow!
This class hasn't been particularly satisfying for me; I feel like I've rushed too much and not covered enough and not covered things well. I acknowledge that summer courses are always hard, so I'm not riding myself too much for it. It also seems like this class has been the most *bimodal* class I've had, though I could be wrong-- a mix of students who wished I would challenge them more, and students who were often very lost. I admit that I tended to teach to the bottom (though not the very bottom; I often blew past my slowest student because I knew there was no way I could explain everything to his satisfaction). On the other hand, my last test knocked everyone for a loop (average was 68 before I curved it, and no one scored better than a low B), so there may be more cockiness there than actual understanding.
My youngest brother is getting married on Sunday, so we are flying out on Friday; Jen's coming back right away on Monday, but I'm going to stick around through the 4th; it'll probably be my last visit to PA until Christmas.
Jen and I are going to go look at a 94 Ford Taurus which has been offered to us by one of Jen's friends who is a mechanic. (Have I mentioned this car?) It's $1200, and the cheapness and convenience of the deal are strongly in the car's favor, particularly since the heat is already beginning to bother Jen and we haven't even cracked 100 yet. The major downside is that the gas mileage is probably in the toilet, which pisses me off for economic and environmental reasons both. I should really be looking for an alternative myself, but I haven't had the time. Jen says this wouldn't count as our "first car", which sounds kinda legalistic, but I console myself by thinking of it as HER car.
The weather here has been very bad, but in a different way than the usual Dallas-summer bad. We have had violent rainstorms nearly every day, and there are huge puddles everywhere. I got caught on my bicycle in one of these downpours the other day, and was not happy. Rain means I have to walk to work, and as I haven't been getting to bed until 2 or 3 all this week, I'm not getting up very early, so I've been getting to school JUST in time for class. Not happy. (It has had me wishing we'd gotten that car, though. :)
Speaking of getting to class, I offered to cover a lab in July in addition to my own class, but then found out that that lab was at 7:30 in the morning! I sputtered a bit, but agreed to go along...but this may be a very bad idea. Fortunately, I only have to do this twice a week (so I've been told).
Also speaking of teaching, I'm seriously leaning towards taking that University of Dallas job. It helped quite a bit when I discovered that I would get...a grader! Wow! It would only be for the one class, but still...that's half my work taken care of already. Plus I'd get my own office, which I haven't had in a long time either. And they'd cover the labs for me. And it's a liberal arts college, a good launching pad for applying to other liberal-arts colleges as I will be doing this fall.
They mention they may require my services in the spring, which leads to the interesting idea that we should move. UDallas and UTSW are only 6 miles apart, and if we could live somewhere in between, then our commutes would be that much shorter and our time with bed and baby would be that much longer. Boy, it'd be nice to have Jen working close to home. On the minus side, of course, there is a) the fact that we'd have to move (BLECCH), and b) if we moved in January, we'd only be at our destination for six months, and it might be hard (impossible?) to find a landlord to agree to those terms (unless it was some lousy apartment building). Oh, and we'd have to move WHILE taking care of the baby. Hmm.
My June class is just about over, huzzah! I had four students take the final exam today, and the rest are taking it tomorrow morning. It is so nice to not have to plan a lecture for tomorrow. I get a whole week and a half off, too! Wow!
This class hasn't been particularly satisfying for me; I feel like I've rushed too much and not covered enough and not covered things well. I acknowledge that summer courses are always hard, so I'm not riding myself too much for it. It also seems like this class has been the most *bimodal* class I've had, though I could be wrong-- a mix of students who wished I would challenge them more, and students who were often very lost. I admit that I tended to teach to the bottom (though not the very bottom; I often blew past my slowest student because I knew there was no way I could explain everything to his satisfaction). On the other hand, my last test knocked everyone for a loop (average was 68 before I curved it, and no one scored better than a low B), so there may be more cockiness there than actual understanding.
My youngest brother is getting married on Sunday, so we are flying out on Friday; Jen's coming back right away on Monday, but I'm going to stick around through the 4th; it'll probably be my last visit to PA until Christmas.
Jen and I are going to go look at a 94 Ford Taurus which has been offered to us by one of Jen's friends who is a mechanic. (Have I mentioned this car?) It's $1200, and the cheapness and convenience of the deal are strongly in the car's favor, particularly since the heat is already beginning to bother Jen and we haven't even cracked 100 yet. The major downside is that the gas mileage is probably in the toilet, which pisses me off for economic and environmental reasons both. I should really be looking for an alternative myself, but I haven't had the time. Jen says this wouldn't count as our "first car", which sounds kinda legalistic, but I console myself by thinking of it as HER car.
The weather here has been very bad, but in a different way than the usual Dallas-summer bad. We have had violent rainstorms nearly every day, and there are huge puddles everywhere. I got caught on my bicycle in one of these downpours the other day, and was not happy. Rain means I have to walk to work, and as I haven't been getting to bed until 2 or 3 all this week, I'm not getting up very early, so I've been getting to school JUST in time for class. Not happy. (It has had me wishing we'd gotten that car, though. :)
Speaking of getting to class, I offered to cover a lab in July in addition to my own class, but then found out that that lab was at 7:30 in the morning! I sputtered a bit, but agreed to go along...but this may be a very bad idea. Fortunately, I only have to do this twice a week (so I've been told).
Also speaking of teaching, I'm seriously leaning towards taking that University of Dallas job. It helped quite a bit when I discovered that I would get...a grader! Wow! It would only be for the one class, but still...that's half my work taken care of already. Plus I'd get my own office, which I haven't had in a long time either. And they'd cover the labs for me. And it's a liberal arts college, a good launching pad for applying to other liberal-arts colleges as I will be doing this fall.
They mention they may require my services in the spring, which leads to the interesting idea that we should move. UDallas and UTSW are only 6 miles apart, and if we could live somewhere in between, then our commutes would be that much shorter and our time with bed and baby would be that much longer. Boy, it'd be nice to have Jen working close to home. On the minus side, of course, there is a) the fact that we'd have to move (BLECCH), and b) if we moved in January, we'd only be at our destination for six months, and it might be hard (impossible?) to find a landlord to agree to those terms (unless it was some lousy apartment building). Oh, and we'd have to move WHILE taking care of the baby. Hmm.
