When I was a college student, the week or two after everything was said and done for a semester was always a little surreal, and I find that pattern is much the same as a teacher. The past week has been that kind of surreal feeling for me. I turned in final grades last Tuesday. There are still a few loose ends to tie up that I'm working through. I was going to try to wrap up more of them by Sunday night, but I decided to take my time shopping on Friday and enjoyed a laid-back day. Saturday morning, I took Deogi to the vet for an overdue vaccination, and I spent the afternoon at a wedding. It was the first student wedding that I've gone to. It's one of my "life connect" girls, which means I've had chances to meet with her outside of class to catch up on life and pray with, so it was cool that she included me in this step of her life.

Sunday, I didn't intend on spending the bulk of the day doing yard work, but once I got started, I just had the momentum to keep going. It was nice to get time outside. By the time the spring semester is over, I'm dying to get outside. I've found one drawback to grading everything electronically is that it makes it harder to get outside. I have to usually put a whole structure around my laptop screen to cut the glare enough for me to see it. I'm please with how the yard is shaping up. Weather permitting, tomorrow my dad is going to drive out to my house to help me cut down some tree branches that are blocking light to the new plants and the plants I planted last year. There's also an ugly, scraggly pine tree next to the deck that we're going to demolish altogether.

Right now I'm stuck at my parents house until tomorrow. I had planned to stay here today while my car was being worked on, but I was going to head back home tonight to clean for the Bible study that I'm hosting tomorrow. It turns out though that the car repair isn't going to be done until tomorrow because the mechanic has to get a part overnighted. Blech. It's the converter, so it's going to be a big bill. What's really disappointing is that I've dumped a good bit of money into emissions sensors for the past two car inspections. This mechanic is telling me that the clogged converter would cause the car to send a false diagnostic signal about the emissions sensors, and they probably never needed to be replaced in the first place. Oh well, it could be worse. The way the car was acting, I was a little afraid I might have a transmission problem on my hands, which would be even more expensive. Plus, the car is paid off, so it's worth it to pay a little more to keep it on the road. I'd like to have at least another 2-3 years with that car.

The rest of this week will be mostly spent doing house stuff because I'm only want to spend minimal time on school. When I get back from my mid-June trip to Florida is when it will be time to start back into planning for next semester in a concentrated fasion.

I rather enjoy random things in life. They make me chuckle, and today was a little random so it made me chuckle.

I returned from my public speaking class in the morning to find a strange sight. Outside my office door is one of those plastic bins where you can place papers and folders BUT today I found a box of assorted chocolates. If it had just been a box of assorted chocolates with no note, that would have been random. However, I would have just maybe  thought it was someone being nice and remaining anonymous. I mean, that kind of thing happens sometimes. However, the chocolates were wrapped in Christmas paper that said joy all over it, AND I knew they were chocolates without opening the package because half the wrapping paper was missing. It was like someone started to open a gift then lost interest. The wrapping paper took the event from random to mystifying. But, hey, whatever. The box was sealed, and I took the rest of the wrapping paper off the box and checked the back. There are no disgusting coconut-filled chocolates in the box, so I'm going to eat them and enjoy. Now, I just have to decide if it's even more mystifying that I'm wasting time writing about this.

Then, I got home tonight to discover a potential problem. My dad installed a motion light this winter because I get a little nervous when I get home and the backyard is all dark. I love my motion light, but now that the tree near the light is blossoming, the light unfortunately stays on all the time basically. I looked up and realized that one of the branches was actually touching the light. It probably wasn't really a problem, but I had visions of the garage going up in blossom-scented flames. This bothered me a little. You know, I didn't want to tell that story to my insurance agent. The problem was that the branch was high and pulling on lower branches to try to bring the offending branch within reach didn't help. So, I drug a ladder out of the house to the backyard, climbed onto the very, very top step where you are never, ever, ever supposed to stand, and took care of the fire hazard with some garden pruners. No worries. I had my cell phone in my pocket, so as long as I wasn't knocked completely conscious if I had happened to fall in stupidity, I would have been able to call for help. Obviously, the rescue crews would have been able to find me easily because the yard is still perpetually lit up.

Now, it's been a long day. I was at school from 9:30 to 4:30 and went back for a special session in the computer lab for students who wanted help (exactly one of them came) from 6:00 - 8:00. I think I'm going to continue the random streak and be asleep before midnight.

I'm behind on grading, but trusting that tomorrow I can remedy some of that, I'm going to post about the good moments of the week.

1) It took a considerable amount of time to get into the planned content for my developmental English class today. That is because one slide into the presentation, a student asked one grammar question, which led to another, which led to another. Then, the group of three students actually were appreciative and -- if I stretch my imagination just a little -- excited to learn about coordinating conjunctions. I'm sure they might forget by Monday, and I'll have to remind them again, but for one brief moment, there was excitement as they learned that one simple list of seven coordinating conjunctions could give them to key to joining their sentences. And, for a few exciting moments, we learned that it's not always wrong, contrary to popular belief, to start a sentence with and. The sentence samples being scribbled on the board came from the students for once instead of from me. I know in the grand scheme of life that the difference between a coordinating conjunction and a subordinating conjunction is not all that important, and I'm not saying by any means that my students are unappreciative of what I do because many of them this semester are great and a few have even gone out of their way to verbalize appreciation, but sometimes you just have moments in the classroom that click and make you happy that you are teacher.

2) Our trip to the dog park was pleasant this afternoon. The weather was nice, which made the dogs a little bouncier and the owners a little more talkative. Deogi behaved well for the most part, and when his baser instincts took over, the dogs put him in his place instead of me having to be the hysterical, blushing owner running after him.

3) I made super delicious ham for dinner. I don't normally get excited about food, so the fact that I'm writing this will tell you that the ham was good. There's leftovers for tomorrow too, so that's a bonus.

4) I went to the talent show at the school, and it was great to see the genuine musical talent of some of our students. There were just some goofy acts too, and it was just an all-around good time. I also got to catch up with one of the girls who used to be in my mentoring group because she was on campus. Many faculty and staff were floating around, and I'm reminded of how cool it is that our school is small and invested in each other.

5) I've had an intellectually stimulating week of thinking about things other than school. Positively energizing.

6) I got really positive feedback from my boss about the writing center proposal that I submitted. He even wants to know if one 3-credit course release is enough or if we should think about giving me more release time. I was floored by that and grateful once again for the team of people I work with.

7) I had a great talk with Jillian to wrap up the evening.