2nd week of 2nd semester 2/22

 My Google Photos is showing the snow pictures taken during the ice storm last year. On a video call with my parents and friends from my church in Texas last Saturday, they reported that it was snowing and the snow was blowing in horizontally. My last snow pictures from my current abode were taken the morning of January 24. If memory serves me, the snaw was melted by the afternoon.  During January,  on calls with my parents, they reported balmy weather while I was cold, even bundled up. For the last couple of weeks, though, there have been some days like Satruday, when it was in the 30's in Texas and in the high 40's here. When I went to the prayer meeting last night, it was 60 degrees. Right now, it's cloudy and 42 at 8 in the morning.

This week, attendance has been down.  We haven't had any tests to avoid during the second week or big projects to keep students up all night, so the students have no reason to play hooky. Even wearing masks at school, in stores, in churchs, and other indoor public spaces, COVID is still affecting people. 

In looking through my pictures, I see that i've only taken a few this week. We had the first baby dedication of 2022 at church this year. Instead of a diaper cake, we had a diaper motorcycle with a bunny driving. The pastor preached about how life was like riding a bicycle. I don't know if he conspired with the sculter of this gift beforehand. You can see the saxophone and keyboard in the background. The praise team did not use the keyboard this week, but they did have a saxophonist, two guitarists, and a bass violinist to add to their vocals. The saxophonist also swapped his saxophone for a tambourine on a couple of songs. The church was crowded with guests, friends of the family of the  baby who was dedicated.

A decade ago, I would have ended this post excusing myself to tackle a mountain of papers that need to be graded. I ask my students to submit their work electronically nowadays, so there is no physical stack of papers to mock me. I do have emails to nag me, though: 11 more Diary entries, 25 video evaluations, and 17 responses to the chapter about research writing for teachers  I also have the homework assignments that I do outside the university system (Google Forms can be set to help me grade the quizzes and homework assignments, but I still have to check that students aren't penalized for leaving out a comma).  On Monday, i rushed to school, stopping by a local cafteria to pick up lunch, of which I scarfed down half at my desk before noon. I checked out the key and got to my room at 11:50 am and started perusing my roster, where I had carefully noted that my first class on Monday is at 2:00 pm. I caught up with some grading in the middle and shared half of my soup with the department secretary while resolving an issue with a student's registration. She loved the thick, creamy green soup, but thought that it was probably a garnish rather than a soup, which would explain the look of confusion on the servers face when she confirmed that I wanted a bowl full.  I would do it again.

I have two hours now to eat breakfast and grade papers before my class today, which really does start at noon (the second class starts at 2). 




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