October, Part One: A Photo Essay

This is kind of how I feel. Like someone stuck a camera with a bright flash right up in my sleepy face and just when I was trying to figure out what was going on SNAP!

The first weeks of October have flown by. I feel like I sort of catch my breath on Sunday afternoons, and then Monday goes by at a pretty even pace, but once Tuesday starts... WHOOOOOOSH! There goes the week! As I sit here with 16 papers graded and 45 left to go, 25 of which really need to be ready to hand back on Tuesday, and a half million other tasks that need to be accomplished this weekend, plus, please, a little fun, too, I feel...well...I feel too crazed and busy to actually know how I feel. I hate when that happens.

But, of course, it isn't all bad stuff. Not at all. Classes are going pretty well. A former student emailed me this week to say that not only did my classes last year convince him he actually liked reading, but over the summer he read several books and attended a play! And he wanted to thank me! Sometimes students thank me at the end of the semester, as they hand in their final, but no one has ever emailed me months later. And another good thing: Cora continues to be almost unbearably cute.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Cora has real potential for a future as a cult leader, I believe. She has all the preschool girls at her daycare under her sway. One day when I went to pick her up, the girls were ined up waiting their turn for the bathroom and the drinking fountain and I carried Cora past them to a high-pitched chorus of "She's so cute!" "I really like her!" "You're so lucky to have her!" And one girl stepped out of line to introduce herself, very proudly, as the one who gets to rub Cora's back at naptime to help her sleep. Did the other little girls look jealous daggers at her? You know they did.

Of course, despite all my complaining about the lack of time, the grading, and so on, I still managed to make chocolate chip cookies two weeks ago. And so Cora met her first homemade, warm from the oven, chocolate chip cookie. She approved.