Fun Day

Today was a day with Dr. J that was much needed. In just a few days, he'll be on his way to River City for the semester. I'm holding it together the best I can, but I know I'm going to crash big time this weekend. It has been so wonderful having him nearby for most of the summer.

So today was a much needed day together. Although we drove to Hometown together for my speaking engagement (which went very well) and for our counseling session, all of the hustle and bustle took its toll. I was exhausted all day on Sunday and slept a ridiculous number of hours. So today, I woke up feeling rested and ready to spend some good time with Dr. J. We had a wonderful visit to the bank where we set up our first joint account and received some excellent financial advice about managing our debt, saving for our wedding, and home ownership. It is exciting to start putting our money together--it makes our upcoming union more tangible. It was equally wonderful to talk realistically about home ownership. Having a home together is probably our number one priority and to have an expert tell us that our goals are reasonable was very comforting. (Of course a lot will be dependent on my ability to go smoothly from one job to another!)

After our visit with the good folks at the bank, we had a wonderful seafood lunch and just sat around in the restaurant as it started pouring ran outside. It felt as if we had the whole place to ourselves--very nice.

Once the rain slacked a bit, stopped by David's Bridal to see their new blue, and then we headed to BBB to start our first registry!! Being the shopper that I am, I was in heaven. The best part of course is that Dr. J was right there with me--I think he had more fun with the scanner than I did. We have plans to hit our second store tomorrow. There was just wonderful wedding glow between us all day--did I mention I'm going to miss him?

To cap off our night, we watched two of our favorite shows and have come to the conclusion that:
1) Gordon Ramsey is the new Bill Clinton (pre-Lewinsky of course).
2) Big Love is going to be off the hook this season.

As if we didn't have enough wedding stuff for one day, we also set up our wedding website! Things are coming together nicely--but the week is already wrapping up too quickly. I'm going to miss Dr. J!

I Made It!

After two grueling weeks, I've made it through our institution's intensive training program for faculty. It was excellent--I learned soo much. But goodness I am exhausted. The program was just further confirmation that I am fortunate to not have a job that requires me to sit at a desk from 8-5. Just the sitting for so long was rough. Add to that hours of techno-speak that was at times too remedial and at other times too advance--it was a demanding program. The rewards, however, definitely outweighed the demands. I have so many wonderful classroom ideas and so much great software and hardware to work with. My favorite new program of the day is Audacity which you can do a lot of easy sound recording and editing with.

I'm also itching even more now for a new personal computer. I've been using my school laptop all year because my dissertation machine crashes every day. I had serious Mac-envy during this seminar, but today I fell in love with the Tablet PC. How cool would it be to read and comment on papers on the screen?? After lugging a stack of 75 student writing packs of 20-40 pages around at the end of last year, I definitely would love to go entirely electronic one of these days.

I'm completely exhausted, but still awake. Why? I have to give a speech in the morning in Hometown. So I'll be up at 6 in the morning again to take the drive. Dr. J and I also have another counseling session tomorrow so we'll be in Hometown all day. I wish I hadn't packed so much into my end of the summer schedule because Dr. J is leaving town NEXT WEEK. The summer has gone by too fast and I do wish I had a bit more time to spend with him. But now I have to seriously get back into school mode. In the words of one of my colleagues yesterday, "well, I guess that's what August is for."


On a separate note: GO BONDS!!! 754 BABY!!! SHAKE THOSE HATERS OFF!!!
(another day I must address the disproportionate negative media treatment of a Black male athlete who has repeatedly tested negatively)

So Hot

Today I learned how to edit videos using Adobe Premiere--I know how to make DVDs!! I think this is so Hot!! Adobe even has templates just for wedding DVDs. I am seriously considering editing our wedding video now--it is incredibly easy to use video editing software once you get the hang of it. We've been thinking about ways to cut cost and had slated the videographer route as "tentative." So maybe I'll get someone to record the footage and do my own video crafting. Just yesterday I saw a videographer online who charges a much lower rate to provide unedited footage. Something to think about...

It is also very hot in our classroom--a nice change from the normally frigid temperatures.

Speaking of hotness, I am loving the new Kanye West songs. He is setting the bar high for his forthcoming CD--the first two early releases are GREAT. I keep going back and forth on which one is my favorite. I think it depends on my mood. Today I have "Stronger" on repeat. Too hot.

I Feel Smart

While Dr. Mom is enjoying Harry Potter, I've been playing with all of these fun technology tools I'm learning about during this faculty development program. We've played with Adobe, Openmind, Open Source Web Design, Edublogs, Refworks, and much much more.

One of the tools I've been really wanting to figure out is how to add a blog to my personal webpage on my institution's server (since our college doesn't have any blogging packages on their server). In our last session Friday we learned about publishing Blogger to other sites and I just finished putting the touches on my personal webpage. I'm so excited that I can use my Blogger account now to publish to my professional page!!! I'm sure I'm a bit slow on this. For those of you who know me, check out my college page and tell me what you think (if you'd like to see the link, send me a comment). I'm working on a whole new template for my page thanks to OSWD, but in the meantime, I'm really excited about this new addition!! Now I don't have to be on my campus server to update my page.

Ok, enough geekiness for one night.

I'm In School

It has been such a busy week. I started this long post about it yesterday, but I haven't had quite enough time to finish yet. Part of the reason--I'm being a student again. I'm in this GREAT instructional technology program and we are learning about so many great resources. One of my favorite for the day: Internet Archives. I'd used the Wayback Machine before but I'd never looked at the Moving Images archive--the Prelinger and Universal Newsreel are two of my new toys and I'm going to be using them a lot in the fall. There are some gems such as this wonderful instructional film on what to do in case things go to hell in a handbasket:

Headed West

Every day brings new excitement and new adventures. I've read books. Tasted magnificent wedding cake. Browsed through selections of gorgeous fresh flowers. I've seen every imaginable shade of blue. I've even done some scholarly work! But it seems like I never have enough time these days to blog.

The reality is, I'm just enjoying my time with Dr. J and trying to squeeze in as many things as I can with him. We are headed out west tomorrow to find him a place and visit his new city! Maybe I'll find a bit of time to blog then....