Back in the classroom

Today was another first day of class . . . and my first day of class.  Spanish class!  It's been a while since I was a student in a classroom, so I was pretty excited.  It's always a little nerve wracking going into the first day of a language class (and even more nerve wracking when you walk in and then greet the teacher in Italian - whoopsie) but when you're out of the student rhythm it's even more crazy.  Granted I only learned a few phrases here are my observations of the day:

1.  The students are right, the desks suck.  They're not big enough, they're too close together, and they make a terrible noise when you try to move them around.

2.  I'm pretty sure everyone but me was dressed in either their pjs or their gym clothes.  Nothing like sticking out even more when you walk in in heels and a suit.

3.  Powerpoint puts me to sleep....even when there are great pictures and important information.  Even though what I was supposed to be reading was on the powerpoint, I found my eyes wandering.  I think it's an emotional reaction to the worst science class I ever took in college.

4.  Spanish is weird.  Where did they get the idea for upside down punctuation?

5.  The Spanish accent sounds garbled to me.  Apparently my crisp, clean (and not even very crisp or clean seeing as I have a southern accent) is doing me no favors.

So tonight I shall try to memorize those weird looking phrases that I learned today and teach myself how to tell time.  I can't very well let the pajama-wearing- twelve-year-old show me up, now can I?

You know school is about to start when....

This is the week that it all begins again.  The public school kids started back today (I almost got hit by a big a** school bus who crossed three lanes of traffic with no signal and no looking - and as a former bus driver myself I find that horrific) and the college kids start on Wednesday.  This past weekend was freshman move in weekend (u-hauls were parked on every spare curb on campus and every student parking lots has cars double and triple parked) and the seniors are starting to enforce their senior-ness.  But for me, I always know school is about to start when these things happen (and they always happen).

1.  I run into students in the coffee shop.  I'm up early and they're just ending their night last night.

2.  I run into students in the gym - you know, when I look my best.

3.  My inbox is full of emails asking if the books in the bookstore "are really necessary."  Um.....yes.

4.  My blackboard sites, MyItalianLab, and Supersite platforms are malfunctioning and I can't get ahold of anyone to help me fix it.

5.  Deadlines for my article, book, promotion packet, and syllabi are all coming up within five minutes of each other.

And so it begins.  Freshmen are wandering scared around campus while sophomores are trying to shrug their parents away and seniors are trying to figure out how to demonstrate their senior-ness.  Ahh, yes....the dance begins.

Pay it forward

My apartment is quite unique in it's trash collection.  You know you live in a city's premier apartment community when they provide valet trash service.  Yup, that's right.  You leave your trash at the curb and it magically disappears for you.  BUT they only pick it up on MWF before 9am.  So on Sunday night I left a bag of trash outside of my door to be taken downstairs when I left for work Monday morning.  When I emerged this morning someone nice had already taken it down for me!  And it was filled with glass jars, a watermelon, three year old TV dinners that were blocks of melted ice . . . in other words it was not the world's nicest bag of trash.  I assume its' the people across the hall from me (the ones that slam their door so hard that they rattle the pictures on my walls every time they enter and exit their apartment) but now I have to figure out how to pay it forward.  Ideas?