Moving right along

Thanks, everyone, for all the nice words of support! I went up to campus today and met with the professor of the class I'm auditing this semester. He was very encouraging and agreed that I seem like a great candidate for graduate school. He also offered to write me a letter when I reapply next year, and suggested someone in the ed department that I might want to talk to. His confidence in me made me feel especially good because he's a professor and not a flaky one, he's someone who has high standards and is really engaged in both teaching and research.

I wish I had a job lined up for next year, but I am feeling more hopeful about reapplying. My professor also suggested I apply at Stanford because they have a really good program. I like how their program looks, but I just don't know about the commute. Maybe I will apply, though, just so I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket again.

The wisteria on the back porch is just about blooming again. I picked some peas from the plants I put in my containers oh so long ago. They've struggled against their shady conditions, produced some pretty purple flowers and now some peas. Not the sweetest peas I've ever tasted, but not bad.

I'm starting a new term with my English learners tomorrow and they're pretty much always fun, even if the class is unfortunately scheduled (1 class/week for 4 hours--not ideal for language instruction). We're going to look at multiple intelligences, learning styles, memory, and other mind/brain topics, culminating in a visit to the Exploratorium mind exhibit in April.

If anybody has actually taught students about multiple intelligences before (as opposed to just using your knowledge of the diff types to plan lessons), I'd be curious to hear about it.

I've got to say that I'm appreciating daylights savings and the light evenings. Makes a much bigger difference to me than having light in the morning!