My latest creative venture

A friend recently asked me about making some crocheted things for her kids. For her daughter, she thought a purse would go over well. I asked for color or style preferences; good thing I did, because like most girls, her style had shifted from my last knowledge. Pink is out, and bright colors and bohemian flair are in. I took it from there.

Bohemian made me think hippie. What might be hippie-ish? Hmm, how about something green or eco friendly. A plarn purse might be good. I used the Recycled Mini Shoulder Bag pattern over at My Recycled Bags. But most plarn is dull, and these bags were a boring white. Still needed work for that "bright colors" bit, so I had a skein of rough, scratchy, irritating Red Heart acrylic yarn that I got for a steal at a garage sale. Bingo, and it used up some of my stash yarn when I worked it along with the plastic bag yarn. For the flap of the purse, I also used yarn that was already on hand, a bit of eyelash novelty yarn that I picked up for no better reason than that it was on clearance, and it was very shiny. It now had a project. The last touch, the button, was also from my existing stash.

Here's the finished product:
I hope she likes it; I had fun making it.

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Now playing: Flyleaf - Sorrow
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Kids these days...

I saw some obnoxious student behavior the other day. During class, the student was half paying attention to the instructor, instead using the computer to check e-mail, check Facebook, and check other assorted web sites. This student was not only being rude to the instructor, but she was also distracting her fellow classmates.

I should know; I was her classmate, and I deliberately moved seats away from the ADD-inducing screen rotation to my left. Tomorrow is the last day of a workshop I've been attending to familiarize faculty with the online class platform. Yes, in this case, the faculty were students. While the aforementioned behavior would be unsurprising in a classroom of college freshmen, I found it more than a little ironic in this scenario. I wonder how that instructor, should she have the misfortune to find herself teaching in a computer classroom, would treat that behavior from a student? Hmm...

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Now playing: Okkervil River - A Glow
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Sunburst or end of days?

Your call.

Clubbin'

Until relatively recently, I had a mental image of book clubs that was, shall we say, stereotypical and unflattering. I pictured a book club as an Oprah-esque meeting where a bunch of women sat around and expressed their feelings as they related to a certain book. In between all that, they'd all gab about the innermost workings of their complicated personal lives, with more of the aforementioned feelings sprinkled in liberally. (Not that I have issues, or anything, but I'm not such a fan of the spilling of souls. In case you couldn't tell.)

I am relieved to dispel that notion, or at least grant that not all book clubs are like that. Based on a certain book and movie tie-in, a good friend of mine started her own Jane Austen book club. It's a casual affair with minimal soul-spilling. For that matter, it's a casual affair, period. Not everyone reads the book, or reads it all the way, but we talk a bit about the book, eat nice food, then watch a version of the book for the month, and sometimes talk a bit more either about plot or how the movie was or wasn't faithful to the book. It's like a once-a-month social gathering with people I might not otherwise spend a weekend day with, and I'll miss it when we run out of Austen-ly goodness.

Summer goals

My New Year's resolutions are never really achievable. I do believe that my summer ones are, though.

• Read voraciously, whatever I can get my hands on--fluff, substance, and book club books. I will have Sense and Sensibility read before the next meeting. Or, y'know, at least 2/3 of it.
• As a subpoint to the above item, I shall try reading more of the books that have been gathering dust on my bookshelf. That way I can determine what's worth keeping and what can be sold back or passed on or Bookcrossed.
  
• Work my yarn stash down. This means not purchasing new yarn willy-nilly, and furthermore, using up what I do have. I should be able to at least make a dent, I think. Also, I need to do more with the plastic bags people have given me to work with. Those things multiply in the closet, I swear.
• Along the lines of using my craft supplies, hack up and make things with those old, half-felted thrift store sweaters.
  
• Give more attention to learning how to knit.
• Update ye olde blog more frequently, preferably with posts of substance.
  
• Fuss with my syllabi for fall as well as working on handouts.

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Now playing: The Shins - Caring Is Creepy
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Reflection on a semester past

As far as semesters go, Spring 2009 was not bad at all. I went into it with a few interrelated goals.

One key goal was to remember to keep time for myself. As goals go, it's a bit abstract--so I made it quantifiable--vowed to keep crocheting a part of my life during the semester and not just between semesters. Successful? Yes. I crocheted in evenings, I crocheted between classes if I had no grading stack, I crocheted during down time at my tutoring job. Creating something--whether it's as small as a bookmark or as big as a tote bag or as incomplete as a row on a long-in-progress blanket--is... soothing. And I felt the difference from other semesters.

I also had a goal to try a new way of structuring my Composition II course. It had some success and showed me a couple things that still needed adjustment. What I got right was breaking down the research process into smaller steps. What needed adjustment was the sequence. Duly noted. I also spent more time on MLA. Some students still left me baffled by their works cited pages, and enough still struggled with in-text citations, but they seemed improved over previous semesters' work.

I also had a goal to keep from taking things personally. It's still a struggle, but I'm getting there. It smarted when a student took her parents to my department chair over a grade issue (and, frankly, rattled me a bit in spite of a supportive chair), but the sting faded eventually. Again, I looked over my students' evals only once. One thought I swayed when I talked, another thought I was in the job for the money, and one thought my lectures weren't useful. I remember those, but I also remember that each of those is generally offset by at least one claiming exactly the opposite. I won't be every student's favorite instructor, and that's fine. There is always at least one I can get to.

Am I a great teacher yet? Not likely. I'm still young and relatively inexperienced. But I've got potential, and some day I may be a good one if I can keep my sanity and continue to refine my techniques and approaches. So far, so good.

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Now playing: Chiodos - If I Cut My Hair, Hawaii Will Sink
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Old-fasioned?

The meaning of grades, as I understand them, is as follows:

A - Exceptional! Damn, but you rocked your instructor's socks off!
B - Pretty good. Better than most, but could've used more effort.
C - Average. You did the work competently, but little snowflake, you didn't go much beyond that.
D - Not passing, but you didn't quite flunk.
F - FAIL.

As a student, I had the niggling sensation that my "A" work wasn't really exceptional. I knew how little work went into those essays I dashed off at the last minute; if anything, I felt that I deserved lower grades than what I got. The grades I feel the proudest of are those few Bs from professors who didn't accept my half-assed work as exceptional, and the even rarer As that I had to work for.

As an instructor, I strive to hold my students to a higher standard. I want my A students to know that they earned that grade. Unfortunately, I just don't seem to get many students like the kind I was...

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Now playing: Tom Waits - Saving All My Love for You
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