Was in Rhode Island this weekend. Now I'm home. Man, that place has a lot of history. The Revolutionary War is so fascinating historically.
Also, I broke my glasses by mistake.
3.28.2011
3.19.2011
What's that Unfamiliar Feeling? Accomplishment? Really?
In brief: I gave up procrastination for Lent.
Well, actually, that would be so hard as to be virtually impossible, so what I did do was impose a ninety-minute block of time (can be broken up into smaller blocks as long as eventually it all adds up to ninety), six days a week, in which I have to work on stuff that really needs to get done. School-related stuff is first on the hierarchy, since the reason I took this up for Lent really was that the halfheartedness of my teaching-related work was one of the biggest areas of my life in which I was not loving God and my neighbor (besides the obvious problem of my students' dependence on me for help and knowledge, this blog's archives will hint at how I've dealt with my own guilt and sense of failure at adult life), but other stuff (like temp-agency applications) is permissible if it really is more urgent than the school stuff on a given day.
I've been doing it since Ash Wednesday (this year, that was March 9th), and it's been going pretty well. I've been doing school-related stuff every day, and I've been a lot more prepared for class than I otherwise would have been.
The only real problem is on the days when really I ought to be putting in more than ninety minutes - sometimes the temptation is to cap it at the minimum because I know that I'll be working on it every day for the next x number of days, so it can be hard to judge how much time I really ought to spend. Altogether, though, it's gone well. And it's been timely - this new unit would have been a mess (and, more than likely, so would I) if I'd waited any longer on putting in regular work, or put in much less than I have.
(Before you're all rather understandably like, "Really? You're putting in about twenty-five percent of the work I put into my own job, and you want me to be excited for you about that?", keep in mind that this is only a part-time position, so it's not supposed to require that many hours per week. Right now, on paper, given lesson prep and teaching and office hours, the Lenten discipline puts me into the thirteen-and-a-half-hour range, as opposed to what was probably seven hours a week back before then.)
This has been your update. There were also supposed to be pictures of the japchae I made on Tuesday night, but maybe that'll happen next time.
Well, actually, that would be so hard as to be virtually impossible, so what I did do was impose a ninety-minute block of time (can be broken up into smaller blocks as long as eventually it all adds up to ninety), six days a week, in which I have to work on stuff that really needs to get done. School-related stuff is first on the hierarchy, since the reason I took this up for Lent really was that the halfheartedness of my teaching-related work was one of the biggest areas of my life in which I was not loving God and my neighbor (besides the obvious problem of my students' dependence on me for help and knowledge, this blog's archives will hint at how I've dealt with my own guilt and sense of failure at adult life), but other stuff (like temp-agency applications) is permissible if it really is more urgent than the school stuff on a given day.
I've been doing it since Ash Wednesday (this year, that was March 9th), and it's been going pretty well. I've been doing school-related stuff every day, and I've been a lot more prepared for class than I otherwise would have been.
The only real problem is on the days when really I ought to be putting in more than ninety minutes - sometimes the temptation is to cap it at the minimum because I know that I'll be working on it every day for the next x number of days, so it can be hard to judge how much time I really ought to spend. Altogether, though, it's gone well. And it's been timely - this new unit would have been a mess (and, more than likely, so would I) if I'd waited any longer on putting in regular work, or put in much less than I have.
(Before you're all rather understandably like, "Really? You're putting in about twenty-five percent of the work I put into my own job, and you want me to be excited for you about that?", keep in mind that this is only a part-time position, so it's not supposed to require that many hours per week. Right now, on paper, given lesson prep and teaching and office hours, the Lenten discipline puts me into the thirteen-and-a-half-hour range, as opposed to what was probably seven hours a week back before then.)
This has been your update. There were also supposed to be pictures of the japchae I made on Tuesday night, but maybe that'll happen next time.
3.07.2011
Thankful Again for Studded Snow Tires
Depending on whom you ask, Binghamton got somewhere between eleven and twenty inches of snow between last night and this morning. All I know is, the snow's literally up to my knees. Carrie and I could hardly figure out, after a while, where to shovel it, given that we couldn't throw it into the neighbor's driveway, which is close to ours, or into the sidewalk.
No plow down our street. Literally every car that tried to come through between, like, ten and eleven-something got stuck. Our across-the-street neighbors, who have a snowblower and so had cleared out a lot faster, did themselves credit by taking shovels and garden implements (a long-handled spade, a hoe) to dig out and then push the vehicles that found themselves going nowhere fast...including Ife's, since he'd come by to return some books (and ended up helping Carrie and me shovel. Bless him).
State of emergency in Broome County until 5 PM. But it's already 1:18 PM and sunny. Among other things, this means that it's time for me to grade some papers, given that my chance of an actual snow day off of work tomorrow (BCC declared one for today, of course, but I don't teach on Mondays this semester) is looking pret-ty slim.
Maybe some pictures to follow? Depends on how motivated I feel to go back out there.
No plow down our street. Literally every car that tried to come through between, like, ten and eleven-something got stuck. Our across-the-street neighbors, who have a snowblower and so had cleared out a lot faster, did themselves credit by taking shovels and garden implements (a long-handled spade, a hoe) to dig out and then push the vehicles that found themselves going nowhere fast...including Ife's, since he'd come by to return some books (and ended up helping Carrie and me shovel. Bless him).
State of emergency in Broome County until 5 PM. But it's already 1:18 PM and sunny. Among other things, this means that it's time for me to grade some papers, given that my chance of an actual snow day off of work tomorrow (BCC declared one for today, of course, but I don't teach on Mondays this semester) is looking pret-ty slim.
Maybe some pictures to follow? Depends on how motivated I feel to go back out there.