238/365-2 Making Plans

"Planning for Class"

I have completed my first week of the semester - one down, fifteen to go.  I shouldn't say it like that because it makes it sound like I only looking to the end and that is not the case at all.  I have great students.  Everyone seems so excited to be in class, looking forward to what the semester has to offer, and what they will accomplish.  Even my 7:30 am class has been full of energy.

My course load is quite heavy, seven different classes and six private composition students.  Because many of my classes are small, I don't have a lot of students, but a class prep is a class prep.  It doesn't matter whether you are teaching five students or five hundred; you still have to prepare for the class.  I am teaching one class that I haven't taught in a long time and it was added to my load late in the game, so I am still in the planning stages with it.  Feeling that I am only one class period ahead of students is not a comfortable place for me  Much of the upcoming three-day weekend  will be spent trying to get my semester outline for this course done.

237/365-2 First Day Tradition

'Back to School"

I can honestly say that I am glad to be back at school.  Things have been busy, crazy, chaotic, but all in a good way.  I do much better with all aspects of my life when my days are more structured.  

The only thing that I don't like about being back at work is having to be "dressed" every day.  I am already missing the flip-flops and T-shirts.  The first thing to go at the end of the day is the "real" shoes.  My feet are feeling a bit confined.  They'll adjust.  Or, I'll give up and wear tennis shoes to school.  I'm pretty sure that I'll garner due respect from my students if I wear my red Converse to class one of these days.

236/365-2 August Where I Stand

"Watermelon World"

To me, watermelon is the epitome of perfection.  It is what makes me look forward to the scorching hot Texas summers.  I fear that this may be one of the last good ones for this season.  The good news in that is that fall is just around the corner.  With that in mind, I plan to savor every chunk of this, possibly the last melon of the summer of 2014.

Today's photo of "Where I Stand" specifically asked us to pay attention to the fruits and veggies in our world.

235/365-2 August Portrait

"Double Header"

For the first time since 1992, no one our house needs back to school clothes.  (Weber and I consider it back to work clothes.)  And now, both of the girls are working.  That didn't keep us from shopping, though.  The girls and I had a nice afternoon at the mall.  We managed to find some pretty good deals!  They honored me with a very quick photo shoot when we got back to the house.

"Erin in August"

"Brooke in August"

Can you tell which one was the more willing participant.

I also had the opportunity to take some photos of one of my favorite people, a student who has also become a very good friend.    

"Sara and Max"

Max, a sheltie rescue, has just joined their family.

234/365-2 Green

"Dad's Cactus"

My pictures and prompts for the last few days are all jumbled up.  I love the cactus picture that I took yesterday so I am using it here for my response to today's "green" prompt, despite the fact that it has a n abundance of blue.  I probably should have swapped yesterday's and today's images, but I don't look ahead at the prompts so I didn't realize the proximity of these two.

I did, however, take a "green" photo.  It does absolutely nothing for me.

And because it does so little for me, I decided to play with it as well.

This is even less appealing!.

It looks like the result of a Monster energy drink having had an extremely unfortunate encounter with  cheap liquor.

But it is green.

233/365-2 Serene

"Life and Beyond"

My head has been in a hundred different places today and none of them was serene.   I spent the morning reconstructing the document that I lost yesterday because of a hard drive issue and I had a series of phone calls to make and take that consumed this afternoon.  Honestly, I was not the least bit inspired, but after my disappointment with yesterday's photo, I managed a slight attitude adjustment and began looking for serenity in the midst of what feels like chaos,  not only in a feeling, but in an image.

What caught my attention was a cactus.  It's the "baby" of one of my dad's cacti.  I brought home with me when we visited in June.  I'm sure TSA had a good laugh at the cactus in the pocket of my backpack.  It certainly did not contain more than three ounces of liquid.  It joined a couple other small cacti, ones that we already had, in a planter whose sand is accented with blue glass beads.  At the time I was taking the photos, I did not even pay attention to the stones.  It was view of the top of the cactus with what looks like spokes radiating out from its center.  

And, it too, is producing quite a number of offspring.

I think that the cactus is absolutely beautiful; however, its beauty does not elicit a feeling of serenity.  Still, I knew it had to be today's picture.  How do you look at all of the prickly needles on this and find any sense of peace or calm?

Earlier in the weak, a couple of friends posted instructions for creating an orb in Photoshop.  Just for fun, I decided to try it with my cactus picture.  Before creating the orb, I did crop the above picture square.  The results with the manipulations were quite fascinating, but still in no way seemed to me to satisfy the daily prompt.

Deep down, I had this nagging feeling that I had been led to this image.  It was not a desperate attempt to just get it done.  I was supposed to take this shot.  I stared at it for several minutes trying to make sense of it.  Is it the color?  No.  Green is associated with life and health.  Blue is the color most often related to peace and calm.  That is why I am so drawn to the color blue.  And then it hit me...

All of the green does indeed represent life with all of its prickly, painful places.  At the top, in what looks like a vortex pulling to the inside, is the small patch of blue, the peace and calm that come after we have endured all the difficulties of this life.  It represents the most serene of all places.

And then there is the circle...

I suspect that this image still has more to say to me.

232/365-2 The Number 5

"One Short"

Yesterday was not a good day.  The hard drive on my computer decided that it was done...no more work for it.  Unfortunately for me, this happened in the midst of saving a huge document that I was working on for school.  On the positive side, Weber was able to retrieve most of the document and the rest I was able to reconstruct fairly easily today.

I also had another course added to my load.  I am denying that for the time being...maybe until Saturday.

I ended up with five instead of six of Weber's socks when I folded laundry.

Thank goodness days are only twenty four hours.  This one went on about twenty three hours too long.