School Starts

The giant university geared up this week, which means I've spent the better part of my days online, typing witty responses to my students and organizing the chaos that happens when my courses get copied to a new semester. Because of my duties monitoring SkyGirl (I read that in a Marvel comic book somewhere), I can only teach online or at night. This semester I have one face-to-face class on Monday nights (no NFL, but we don't have cable, so that's a moot point anyway), and the other three classes are all online.

I also have online office hours, which have to happen after Ciela is asleep, so essentially, 2 nights are gone. The other five are constantly eaten up by continuous responses to assignments sent up to the class bulletin board. I'm not looking forward to the year at all, except that I do like teaching, and there are moments where I forget all the other pressures that intrude on my relation with the students . Those moments are enjoyable.

The Doc took SkyGirl out for birthday shopping this morning. The kid received a fair number of checks and gift cards along with presents. While we used to just use these to pay off the mortgage, SkyGirl’s old enough to now know that somebody sent her something and she expects to see results. So she got a new tea set, a magnetic collage board, a card game, and a hobby-horse which she rode all around the Clinic today.

The days are banal, but each one reveals some small wonder.