- Not too comfortable

This week I audited a lecture given by the lead professor of a big mechanical engineering course that I’m involved in, modestly. I was there to signal my interest and get some information on an upcoming assignment.
At some point, the students were prompted to draw a human-powered hovercraft. I was sitting next to another [...]

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- Harvest

Rich, my neighbor — husband of Julie, father of Georgie, and looker-alike of this guy — walked by and asked me if the sunflowers were ready to be harvested for seed.
Yes.

However… “I decided not to harvest them,” I replied to Rich, “and that I’d leave them for the wildlife.” I told him about a Downy [...]

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- If only we could go back, if only!

In a conversation about Ted Kennedy’s death and the Massachusetts response, James asked me about what he called my “JFK Jr. project,” a piece on the summer of 1999, when I became scarily obsessed — unusual for me — with the story of the crash of the plane piloted by John F. Kennedy, Jr. and [...]

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- Explicit teaching

In the first few moments of her three-day workshop, Supporting Reading Comprehension, Writing, and Study Skills at the Landmark College Institute, Linda Hecker prompted participants (I was one of five) to introduce ourselves and say why we came.
When it was my turn, I answered that I wanted to learn and develop more explicit teaching methods, [...]

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- Sunflower folly

This is what hope looks like.

During a spring semester clouded by the recession and my own economic downturn, I forced myself to take on tasks that were both optimistic and doable. I tended to my students and their work; I cultivated ties to colleagues and friends; I hoed the already neat rows of my resume; [...]

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- Good use of time?

Without the energy to start a new knitting or sewing project, much less decide on one, I experimented on knitting the same thing — a small leaf — in different materials: yarn, wire, plastic bag shreds, and dried grass.  The straight-up yarn leaf in marled red came out pretty nice, and it’s in the banner [...]

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- Census: seven bags

In response to my School Bag Meme, Emily, Rosemary, James, Dr. Poppy, Jan, and Alex posted the contents of the bags they carry to and fro work every day.  (Thank you, friends and sis!) Add their contents to mine, and you get this wordle — kind of a census of the things we seven carry.

I [...]

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- Simple time management

There are many things that could be done in a day.
There are many things that will not get done.
Choose one of each; others will follow.
—
Thank you to my shower, which gave me this thought.

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- Clouds

This is a cool way to kill, I mean spend, some time. Copy and paste the text of your c.v./resume into Wordle. The Wordle tag cloud might teach you something about yourself, or remind you of stuff you already know. Every word in my December ‘07 resume makes the cloud below. (Collaborators, you’re in [...]

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- Eight things

It’s nice that there is still room in life for firsts, even though so many of the firsts are way behind me. I’ve been tagged. While I don’t feel a frisson exactly, I do feel a little flutter.
Yes, I’ll dance to this meme. Here is my list of eight things about me.
1. [...]

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