The Laursonian Institute

Today was a go-go-go-go kind of day.  My buddy and co-TA Ariel emailed me last night to say that she had gotten food poisioning (boo!) and asked if I could take over her sections today.  I have my Friday section at 9, and she teaches the 10 and 11 sections… so that meant three straight hours of teaching this morning.  It actually went really well, and it was the last week of section for our Friday kids, so it was kinda nice to know I wouldn’t see these folks again.  I had to bump my office hours back an hour to accomodate the sections, so by 1 when I was finally free, it had already been quite a long day.  Tried to grade papers over lunch, and then I had my three-hour typology class… by then I was pretty spent but I hadn’t even started on my own work, let alone finished grading for the day.  So I had Lewis come pick me up and take me out to dinner (I had to be driven to school this morning because my bike tire was flat and I didn’t have time to fix it!) and then I came home and got right back to work.  Now it’s 10:30.  And it’s bedtime.  But i got so much done today, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing.  Kids taken care of, essays graded, classes attended, and I’m ready for my weekend preparing for the big presentation Monday.  I’ll try not to panic about that too much between now and then… but damn if I’m not a bit nervous.

May 29th, 2009 | Tags: dinner, friends, grading, papers, taing, tired | Category: school | Comments Off

I’m feeling stressed out.  And disappointed in myself for being stressed out.

It was sort of a rough day, though Lewis made me a lovely waffle breakfast with strawberries this morning.   Spent the rest of the day wrestling with some rolls I was making for easter dinner with the Lawyers.  Probably should have used a recipe I’ve tried before, but I’m always game to get to try something new, especially when it’s something sort of time consuming I don’t usually get a chance to try.  Stupidly it took an hour longer than I was hoping, and they didn’t even turn out very well.  I shouldn’t have stressed out about it.

Through the stress fog, some good things went on.  I got a nice walk this morning to get some ingredients, and the dinner at this evening was very nice.  I also got all the laundry done.  And did some reading outside, where I got a small sunburn.  I was going to hit up the gym today, but it was closed for the hoilday.  I do think it would have helped chill me out.  I wish I knew some more immediate way to alleviate my anxiety, it really ruins my days.  Or at least sucks the life out of them.

Tomorrow is a new day.   I slept off my stress last night and woke up feeling well this morning.  I can do it again.

April 12th, 2009 | Tags: baking, dinner, easter, stress, sunshine | Category: life | Comments Off

Today seems sort of like a wash, though I did have a lovely evening with Lewis’ mom who came over for dinner.  Treated her to pasta and avegolemono and my faked symposium salad.  Yum!

I’m a little annoyed with TAing stuff, but I supoose that’s sort of status quo for this administrative business.  Got a feel for my first day of Lin 1 class, and then met with the teacher and co-TAs for some business chat.  I shouldn’t be bothered about what’s going on, I guess.  TAing is just stressful, and I’m not really looking forward to starting this again.  I’ll feel better after the first few classes are past when I have a feel for my students and the lay of things.  Just gotta get to that point.

Had a meeting with the department chair today too about funding stuff, which I had been fairly worried about since his cryptic email yesterday.  Anyway, the funding issue wasn’t anything notable, and really worked out a bit in my (and Lewis’) favor.  The chair just wanted to swing this sort of team-teaching thing for two of the upper-division intro classes such that Lewis and I split up 6 sections over two quarters in some crafty manner and cleverly get us both covered for tuition.  The chair is a very strange man… nice, but a very obtuse talker, and difficult to really comprehend in most interactions.  At any rate, all is well.  I’m looking forward to hearing about the real funding plan soon.

March 31st, 2009 | Tags: dinner, funding, taing | Category: school | Comments Off

A lot of things happened today, but I only want to talk about the food parts!  Lewis and I mustered up the gumption to hit up the Co-op in the now regular bi-monthly real-food-buying extravaganza.  We used to shop more often, but lately it’s been one of those things where we only make it to the store in times of dire necessity, and it was one of those days.  I managed to make breakfast this morning, but only just, as we were out of milk, all bread products, and yogurt… thank goodness for a squirreled away container of rolled oats, and a cupboard hiding some soy milk.  The weather was really beautiful today, so it was a wonderful day for riding around town.  The Co-op is really great on weekday afternoons when it’s calm and the cashiers aren’t busy or rushed (not that it’s really any less friendly in there when it’s busy, I just get nervous in a crowd).  We bought a million tasty things, baaaarely managed to fit everything on the bikes, made it home, and had teeny ice cream sandwiches!  Spent the rest of the evening doing laundry and finishing my Quechua and semantics homework for the week, and then made dinner.  We picked up a whole trout (not rainbow, but “golden”… I think it was localish?) and cooked it up in some parchment with some veggies for dinner.  Also made really delicious Indian-style fried potatoes to go with it.  Oh!  And we finally got to use Lewis’ bun warmer!  It worked very well, to our mutual delight.  Rolls were kept butter-meltingly toasty without getting too hot or crispy.  Yay!

February 19th, 2009 | Tags: co-op, cooking, dinner, fish, shopping | Category: home, life | Comments Off

It’s been a week of socializing, which for me, is probably a record.  I went out Thursday with my co-TA to Sudwerk, and here I am again, blogging after a dinner at Sudwerk with more ling friends!  Lewis and I met up with another grad student who lives in my office, and her husband, and we rocked the drinks and eats… so tasty.  They actually had a pretty nice jazz band playing tonight as well, which was excellent though it did make it difficult to hear anyone talking.  Double bonus points for us – we went out to dinner with some folks for the first time, and then we invited them over!  Turns out they like games as much as we do, so we played a round of Zombie Fluxx, and then introduced them to some Cheap Ass Games (namely, Secret Tijuana Death Match).  So much fun!

And to top it all off, I even got a fair amount of work done today.  Here’s to being, I hope, one day away from being done with my transcription.  Sigh.  Too bad I have to code it after that!  Tomorrow should be good though.  A nice, calm Sunday, with a great week coming up!  Tuesday is a holiday, so we don’t have class.  Mondays have always been pretty chill.  And my parents will be in town Thursday!  Yay!  I’m rather looking forward to much in the near future.  And I’m not letting myself get too worried about the upcoming papers, though I know there’s a lot of work to be done…

For now, lets just call this much Saturday success!

November 8th, 2008 | Tags: dinner, friends, games, transcription | Category: life, school | Comments Off