Back on the Ground

That sure was a quick trip!  Actually, I'm glad it was because St. Paul, Minnesota was an expensive town as I was kind of stuck in the neighborhood where they held the conference.  These gentlemen guarded the door at my swank hotel, which was very swank indeed.  I had supper there with friends the first night, and hoo boy, it was a puzzle to put together a meal from that menu that was affordable.  I had French onion soup -- and it was fantastic.

I saw a few old friends and met a few new ones, and had a great conversation with my editor.  I think I can see the end of the project, finally.  Plus, she's a knitter, so in the near future we'll get together and have a good little yarnfest.

Speaking of knitting, my luggage was so small that I didn't bring any projects with me on the trip and in the end, I didn't have any time to work on it.  My tiny suitcase will work just fine for most domestic travel, as long as I don't try to pack anything that easily wrinkles.  I would have been fine with just the shoes I was wearing, and I ended up not even taking out the spare pair of slacks I brought -- although I know that if I hadn't brought them, I would have spilled something on the ones I was wearing if they were the only ones I had with me.  Bringing only clothes that easily matched everything else in the suitcase worked really well, but next time I think I want to have a little more variety; black is okay, but on day three I'm blacked out!  As a result, I'm wearing jeans all week because I can't bear the thought of putting on those black slacks.

School is still keeping me really busy, but the semester that I spent working so hard on getting a good set of powerpoint lectures together for a class has paid off.  I did that what, about two years ago?  In the time since, I've tweaked the lectures a few times and now I can just give them a glance before using them in class, confident that I've got the subject covered.  Last semester I made a set of study guides for the new text I'm using, so for that one course, I don't have to do a lot of prep work.  As this semester goes on, I keep reminding myself that the work I'm doing now for this course will pay off in the same way as the others have, and the next time I teach it I'll be that much more ready.

Well, it's back to the grind.  I've got a pile of grading to finish, but when that's done there won't be any more for about another ten days -- thank goodness!