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It's been quite a week, but Friday's here. I've been grading research papers for my 4 Intro to Literature classes and will grade one more set throughout the weekend (I arranged for the due dates of these research papers to fall mid-semester: the students know--or are supposed to know--how to write a research paper at this stage, and the end-of-semester grading avalanche is diminished ).

UIL (University Interscholastic League--see http://www.uil.utexas.edu/ for more information if you like) competitions have started this week also. Our college is hosting district competitions Thursday-Saturday in categories such as persuasive speaking, informative speaking, prose interpretation, poetry interpretation, spelling, several mathematics contests, Lincoln-Douglas debate, one-act play . . .

I am/will be judging mainly the prose and poetry interpretation, but I'll also be on hand for persuasive and/or informative speaking if there's an emergency (like a judge not showing up).

UIL is fun, and it's a nice change of pace. It's gratifying to see the collective excitement on the faces of the high school students who are competing.

This Sunday, on my one day off, I hope to work in the garden. The digging is finished (for now ) and I want to add some soil amendments, such as compost in order to feed the soil and make it more fertile. I look forward to putting in eggplant and tomato plants soon, as well as sowing some other vegetables, such as beans, Swiss chard, and squash.

I hope everyone has a good weekend!

Earthwoman

It's been a long week, what with Week 6 of the semester (which is always a tough one--I'm not sure why) in full force, substituting for colleagues who have been stricken with the flu bug or with the conference-attending bug, grading papers, and helping to put in a new hot water heater (the old one, after 19 years, decided that last Saturday was a good day to die).

I am looking forward to a "no-grading" weekend that will be spent primarily preparing this year's garden site. I may or may not finish this weekend, but I'm eagerly anticipating digging in the dirt.

Yes, it's nearly the weekend--woot!

It'll be a busy weekend--I'll be grading lit papers--but I'll also take some grading breaks and go dig in the garden. The weather is turning more spring-like, and I feel the urge to start preparing raised beds for the spring/summer vegetable garden. I also have an herb garden, or two, in the planning stages.

Not that I think I'll get the gardening all done this weekend, but getting started with the digging (and with grading papers) is the hardest part. Once I have a rhythm going, watch out!

It's looking like a fairly easy workday today: all four of my morning classes are writing an in-class essay--they'll finish these essays Wednesday. This means some crucial catch-up time for grading daily grades, both in-class (journals, pop quizzes) and out-of-class (for all my classes, I post reading quizzes on WebCT/Blackboard; in other words, I get the students coming and going.

This weekend, I came down with the cold that's going around; however, I don't seem to have it as badly (knock on wood). I made a point of relaxing this weekend: getting plenty of rest and plying myself with spiced tea. As a result, this cold is more of a nuisance than anything else.

The dueling groundhogs are at it again. Puxatawny Phil calls for six more weeks of winter, while his Southern counterpart in Georgia says that spring-like weather will arrive early. Time will tell, I suppose. In the meantime, I am making plans for this year's garden and am looking forward to breaking ground again.