A phenomenal day

Yesterday was a great day. Oddly enough, it was my long day of the week...but it was still phenomenal.

Maybe the biggest reason was that I only felt sick for about 20 minutes the whole day. This is a huge improvement over the norm lately.

My students did really well on their first In-class writing assignment. I always worry about it. But they did okay. And their average fell within the department's expectations, so I didn't feel pressured to artificially inflate grades so that they would be happy.

And I LOVE my Renaissance Studies/Comp Lit class. I could go there every single day and feel pretty great about myself. We always have good discussions, and the prof is great. I managed to not make a fool of myself in class today, and actually contributed useful things to the conversation. Nice.

Then, Ben made dinner. Also wonderful. And BeeBoo ATE! Which is not the norm and is absolutely great.

Mostly I spent the day thinking about how great it is to be this person who gets to spend some time at school learning really great stuff (and getting paid for it), a lot of time at home teaching a two-year-old and thinking about how she'll react to the distant eventuality of a sibling, and a good portion of what's left over talking with Ben or watching funny/thought-provoking/sad/different movies just for the fun of it and the conversation that comes out of it. It feels like things are in an okay balance for now.

I feel really blessed because I get to do all of that....and because I get to indulge funny cravings like pomegranates and raspberries and farmer's cheese, all of which make me think of fall. I need to go to the orchard to buy some cider...

I'm glad that for the moment all of my contradictions that make me up seem to have made peace with each other.

Oh.....my......goodness

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Understanding that they're probably just pulling a stunt to bring attention to the issue, there are multiple reasons why PETA's suggestion couldn't be a viable business plan.

1) Who would eat ice cream made out of breastmilk? Weird Freudian implications there.
2) Breastmilk isn't structured like cow's milk. Mine, at least, I'm pretty sure would be too thin to make ice cream out of.
3) PETA apparently thinks we should neglect human babies so the cows don't suffer...hmmm....self-loathing much?
4) Even if every single lactating woman in the US would sacrifice the health of their child to supply Ben & Jerry's, I doubt production could meet demand. Our babies don't drink gallons of milk. Just ounces.

And viable business plan aside, it's just STUPID! Not to mention the degrading parallels they're drawing between women and cows...

"That's not a camisa, it's a shirt"

Thus proclaimed my two-year-old, extremely stubborn daughter. We had been happily Spanish-ing...it makes her laugh when I speak in Spanish, but she's getting better about repeating when I ask her to, or identifying things I point to. She had gone through a series of body parts with funny pronunciations (like "oto," "naliz," "pay," "orefa" etc). Then I grabbed my shirt and said "camisa!" Without a moment's hesitation she furrowed her brow, glared at me and said "That's not a camisa, it's a SHIRT!"

I don't know why that one was less acceptable than the others she accepted.

Along the same lines, on the way home yesterday Ben asked if we could stop and get a movie from the Redbox...I said I didn't have anything to do, so we could watch a movie. I had been feeling sick, so he asked "What is it you like for that? Schnapps?"

I laughed really, really hard. He was thinking Schwepps ginger ale....but it was still hilarious to think of him buying alcohol for me...and especially at the moment. :-)

Hooray for office hours!

So the semester has officially started, I officially have office hours, and can officially blog more often now! Hooray.

So far it's just business as usual. We do have some improvements over the norm though.

Ben and I have no overlap in our schedules. As in, BeeBoo doesn't have to come to campus with us at all! It's amazing.

I have basically the best schedule ever...I have all my classes on Monday and Tuesday, then Wednesday and Friday all I do is teach. And what about Thursday, you may ask? I have somehow managed to swindle a free WEEKDAY out of my life. Hooray!!

My theory class is MUCH better than the one I took at BYU (no apologies either...it just is). The professor has a great approach to theory. The first day of class he said that theory done well isn't perversely difficult...it isn't just hard for the sake of being hard. So when we came to class the next week having slogged through 300 pages of Kant's Critique of Judgment, he said "Well. 2 hours of Kant will be exhausting for all of us. Here goes." And we talked about it. And got to say things like "I didn't understand _________." And the professor would say things like "Well, I'm not an expert. This is what I think about _________." It was lovely. :-)

I'm taking a posguerra class and a Renaissance miscellany class. (How much more unrelated can it be, right?) Both seem good. The prof of the Spanish class is really knowledgeable and seems really open to discussion and questions. She also doesn't presuppose any previous exposure to the material on our part. (I hate when you show up to class to discuss a text and they say things like "As you all have seen before..." Well, I usually haven't, that's why I'm taking the class!) I feel in the Renaissance class a little like I used to in Pratt's class...really interested, engaged with the reading and discussion, but totally intimidated because the professor is so over-the-top brilliant! :-)

So life is good. Or will be as soon as they sort out my registration problem. (If they don't, I'll rant about it soon!) I get to take naps, which is a really good thing at the moment. I've been absolutely exhausted lately. And I have time to cook good food. (Though Ben cooks Monday and Tuesday...having all my classes on those days means I don't get home til 6:30 and 7, respectively). Anyway.

Sorry that it's not more interesting, but that's what's going on at the moment.