What's new around here?

Matt's working on polishing up his dissertation. When he needs a break from that, he looks up salsa moves and teaches me once I get home. Dancing is something we've never done until this month and we're getting better since our first lessons! It's super fun to spin in socks on the laminate floor, until you get carried away and bump into the walls or furniture. Then we know it's time to go back to work.

I taught my last class today and exams are next. The last two weeks have been tough. Teachers know how stressful it is to wrap up material at the end of the term... but it's awfully worse having lost several classes due to snow! Oh, spring... come quickly!! Actually, it's sunny and 55 today but it will drop down to the 30s again next week.

Everything happens at the end of the trimester: music concerts (Olympic themed), school musicals (9 to 5) and art galleries (didn't go out of exhaustion). My weeks have been filled with lunch meetings about academic advising, which will start in late March: I have 10 sophomores to track, so that's not too bad. 

I will have one week of spring break at home, resting! but also getting ready for the spring trimester where I'll have an extra class and a whole new syllabus to figure out. Also, my files are a complete mess. The second week of spring break (8th to 16th), I'll be in France with 7 of my students (all girls)... I still have so much to do with that.... We'll go to Paris for 3 days, then to the south of France (Nice, Avignon, Monaco). I'm especially excited to visit a perfumery in the city of Grasse. I wish Matt was going with me, but he'll have a conference of his own. This trip has had its own list of things to do, but I'm glad that the end is near. The technology piece has given me the worst headache because I have never used some of these puzzling items, like the iPad (how can I take pictures/video with it? how can I put e-books on it? how do get apps?) Thankfully, the school has an awesome team of IT experts. The cell phone piece has also been figured out (thanks, Dad!): how do I use my new French cell phone? how can American parents call French cell phones and vice versa? I do my best to answer questions, but frankly I'm still learning myself! Sometimes I feel like my students' grandma...

Safety is the parents' number one concern and I don't blame them. For 3 of my girls, this is their first time out of the country, so I've been doing a lot of teaching on what it means to be travel savvy. Luckily, I'm Randy's daughter, and even though I don't have a vest with 19 pockets and 4 secret ones, he's taught me well: photocopy everything multiple times!!  I just hope that the weather won't be too rainy--what a bummer it would be for the girls. Paris can be so foggy, and where would the view be from the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe if we're in a cloud?!?! (first world problems, I know, but this trip isn't free and I want them to have the best experience!)

We've been trying to make seeing friends a priority, otherwise we end up living in a work bubble and life becomes imbalanced very quickly. So, we've played Setters of Catan with some faculty friends a couple of times when our schedules match up.

Tonight, I'm on SNA duty (Sat night activity) and I'm taking 30 kids bowling from 7 to 10 pm. I'm hoping to get some grading done, but I wonder if I'll be able to concentrate at all...