Haze

Last week passed in a bronchitic haze. (I just adjectived a disease.) I'm looking at my last blog post- I wrote it on my iPad and it cut any cool formatting I might have done.

I limped through the week, "teaching" classes and propping myself up in my office. I am so, so glad that by the end of the quarter, my students are independent learners and are expected to do most of the work in the class with me acting as guide. I did give up on Thursday and just went to the doc. Grey helped me keep track of what medicines I took and when and what I could and would take next.

These peonies were just waving in the wind

Friday was emotional. It was the last day I would see my Multicultural Literature class. First, we had a graduating senior in the class and this was his last class to attend as an undergraduate. We clapped for him and wished him well on his next adventure- Music education in Brazil! Then it was on to a presentation by my last group of students on the influence of African-Americans on American music. It was interesting, featuring many famous and infamous singers and songwriters and leaving out a few of the more obvious ones in favor of ones people may not know. It sparked a good discussion. Then I handed back some papers and told students that, as promised, I would answer their questions on my opinions of the works we discussed in class. I tend to hold a strict rule of withholding my opinion because it might restrict what students can discover.
 Their questions reflected a deep continued interest and understanding of the materials. And a continued reflection of those things. I was deeply moved. Then that was it. I thanked them for their amazing efforts and congratulated them on being such a wonderful class, one I truly enjoyed. Several stayed after to shake my hand and say "thank you".

 Damn, I wish I had felt better.

 Ah well.

Yesterday morning, we in the Central Washington Writing Project finalized plans for the June 18-27 Summer Institute. It's going to be fun. My contribution was introducing the idea of writing marathons, which will be our opening activity. I'm the technical liaison this summer too. So I get to be part of but not particularly responsible for major projects. My favorite!

 After that, I was tapped (yes, on a Saturday morning) to write the bonus points section of the grant we've been working on, so Grey and I got some lunch and worked from 2 until almost 8 and got that part done. I was finally feeling better and had had 6 hours of sleep- recovering after a night of only 2.5 hours from all the coughing and weird medicine. We had that sparkling wine and went to bed. The haze is starting to clear up. I'm off to a book club to discuss "The Giver" with some junior high school kids and their parents.
 

This bistro set is my birthday present. G picked it out and it's exactly what I wanted. :) 

And Happy Anniversary to this guy! What a wonderful man! 

Birthday bubbles, a little late.