Sunday, May 27, 2007

"Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon"

Three-day weekends are arguably the best weekends.

It's been hectic around here, what with trying to get all the end-of-the-school-year stuff crammed into students who have already checked out mentally, Michelle getting sick every other week, and the dozen or so other commitments we have placed on our meager free time.

That, and we've been watching a heckuva mess of Scrubs. All five season sets, in fact, in the past three or four weeks. We sorta went a little Scrubs-happy. Also got all four seasons of Jeeves and Wooster on DVD. Damn you, clever British comedy based on the works of P.G. Wodehouse!

We've been trying to get the apartment in order this weekend. Things tend to fall apart rather quickly around here, mostly due to the fact that Michelle and I both have busy schedules and don't really want to do much in the evenings after we come home from work (well, except watch Scrubs). We're also kinda lazy.

Found out yesterday my father is getting remarried, this time to his current girlfriend (Vivian, who came up with dad to visit me back in early April). Part of me is surprised by this move, but part of me saw it coming ages ago. Still not really sure how I feel about it, but I do know this: I definitely have to remember that her name isn't Vicky now (this was a problem I was having for awhile, mind you).

I've been teaching the students in my Humanities class about music history the past few weeks. It's been very successful, I feel. Most of them are really enjoying it, and the ones who aren't will enjoy the project we're starting at the end of next week (they'll be presenting their own favorite music to the class). I've been making mix CDs for them every few days, which they love, but it's a bit of a hassle on my part and something I want to make simpler if I do this again next year.

The idea I had for next year, actually, is to make these things available as podcasts. I figure, mostly (if not all) of my students have some sort of MP3 player and computer access. The students could go access the podcast playlist and have all the stuff I'm going to talk about.

I could even take it one step further: record all of my class lectures and make those available as podcasts. It'd be great: if a student didn't catch everything in a lecture of was absent one day, they could just go download the lecture and listen to it. I've already started talking with Shirley, the school's tech person, about the feasibility of getting a Blackboard site or something similar set up so we could do this.

Granted, I'm also going to have to make my lessons more structured and I'm going to have to plan ahead more for all of this. I'm thinking of taking some time this summer to plan out the entire school year for each class I'm teaching and get things put together ahead of time so I can get through my material at a better pace. Lord knows I've struggled with pacing stuff the past couple of years, especially in American History.

Barbecue tomorrow at Michelle's parents' place. I love me some hamburgers from the grill, that's for sure.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Rufus Wainwright, "Tulsa"

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