timna

a little bit more done each day

now we know that the malaria pills will have to be purchased quarterly. it's the only way the insurance will pay.

now we know that the bank will get the rent money from here to there. we hope.

the apartment director is still addressing me as mr. timna. hope there's no problem with renting to a woman!

word from the dept head -- maybe on Sunday I'll have more of an idea of what I'll be teaching.

the money is going out in big chunks. incoming? trickles. yikes. but we have flights and an apartment. not so sure that we'll be able to fund a visit for the timnas who aren't coming. not seeing them for 10 months would be very very difficult. we're still hoping for winter break in Thailand.

beautiful day here. keep working on my class. then some housekeeping, then some desk clearing. have to figure out which bank will work there. apparently not wells fargo.

15-year-old on kibbutz, somewhere up by the pool?

so he's having a good time. doesn't say a word in English apparently. got re-introduced to the kids his age and hasn't been seen much since, though he did show up when his grandmother came out from Beer Sheva to see him. didn't stay with her and his grandfather for lunch, uh, no, the kids were sitting together in the dining room over somewhere else.

next week - raft building on the kinneret (sea of galilee). sounds like a good vacation.

the rest of us -- dealing with leaving. signing a lease for Dhaka. buying sheets for almond joy's dorm. cleaning and tossing.

caught up on grading! and only one small quilt to make by next Friday. a lull here. it's about time.

grades are due today

and I have 10 more papers to read.  home at 3am after a long long day of sight-seeing boat ride in Chicago, and ed debevich's and later a birthday meal in some far northern suburb. could relax after 11pm when I got word that ben t. made it to his grandfather's in Israel. first time he flew alone and British Air would not take him as an unaccompanied minor since he had a 10 hour layover in London. which was actually reduced to 7 as they didn't take off from O'Hare on time anyway.

much work here. a taping today for a documentary. also almond joy had to be back for work this morning.

the wedding was wonderful. a chuppa in frothy white and ribbons, a beautiful ceremony, lots of people who do not usually see each other (family tensions abound) nonetheless made efforts at getting along or avoiding. we did the 1-2 nights at each of my siblings - the timna family road show - and I suppose I should have been saying good-bye since we're leaving for Bangladesh in less than a month. I wasn't ready to acknowledge that I might not see everyone one more time later in the month when I go down to pick ben t. up on his return.

work work work

As ben t.'s friend Ian, 6, once said about first grade as opposed to kindergarten.

Sometimes I just have to catch up with the online classes. One is ending this weekend and then for July I'll only have the children's lit going. 

We got the visas to India yesterday. What a smooth operation that is. after dropping off all of the documents, I had to wait downtown for 6 hours, but my sister joined me and we went to the art institute and lunch. a good day.

And we may have an apartment, though I have not yet had any personal contact. They just keep sending me the brochure for the complex. looks good. also my grant was re-evaluated and went up significantly. orientations are very helpful for comparing notes with other folks.

 

slight bumps

the folks at the fulbright orientation insisted that it's infinitely easier to get a visa to India from here in the States. so, since we were going to Chicago anyway for a wedding on the weekend, we're trying to squeeze in those visas before ben t. takes off (with his passport, of course) for Israel next Sunday. glitches in that trip in that he can't be an unaccompanied minor -- too much time in between flights in London. so he'll be doing that on his own. big gulp here.

meanwhile - the quilt is done. we had a fantastc 48 hours here with my youngest sister and her daughter who is almond joy's age. it came together brilliantly and it's so much easier to quilt when one person keeps on sewing when the other gets tired.

have to grade the first set of papers -- the second set is starting to come in. have gone so much easier on these two classes than usual. gave up on writing new quizzes. changed the research paper in one of them to a position paper with less required resources. interesting work coming in.

I think I'm going to have schedule days in my office to clear some space. maybe the home office, too. can't leave for a year in my usual pack-just-before-the-flight manner. we have tickets: August 5th, arriving August 7th. no apartment yet. no classes assigned yet. such is life.   

we have a cohort

great folks will be in Dhaka with me. hope to see them regularly. also meeting the blog authors whose work I've followed for the past six months was really fun. met up with a blogger friend the first day and my soon-to-be-nephew (that's what happens when someone marries a niece, right?) the next night. very full 3 days.

no apartment yet, but some good leads. lots of ideas. ready to book the flight. it's starting to feel pretty real indeed.

this weekend a quilt to make and my sister is on her way up to work on it with me. next week is a little less stressful since one of our visiting plans fell through. so we'll leave home closer to the wedding. unless we leave earlier to maybe get visas to India which apparently are much much easier to get in the States.

what else? classes are not getting a whole lot of attention, but still take quite a bit of time. I stopped grading while my tablet is being repaired. I'm pretty spoiled now.

still so much left to do from the list. have to try to realize I've accomplished a lot this week. one major upset with almond joy -- this separating thing is so much harder than I imagined. had lunch with students who will be in dhaka and they remind me so much of her -- they're really only a few years older than she is.

sorry, lists help me get things done

for the online classes:

finish grading essay #1. otherwise, caught up. unintended consequence of not updating quizzes (and not posting for several chapters) was that the quiz on She's Not There became the only quiz this week, not one of 4. sure makes clear who didn't read that.

oh, post midterm discussion board grades in the ws.

submit receipts for conference.

make a quilt square for the quilt we're putting together here next weekend (for my niece's wedding the next weekend).

get the tax tab for the car license plate.

get ben t.'s unaccompanied minor status fixed for his trip to Israel. urgent.

call about storing the cello for a year.

appointments for retainers. yea, retainers.

clear the desk. probably other urgent things there. mail out the umping forms that I said I'd do earlier.

answer the 4 apartment owners in Dhaka.

make plans to see people in Washington.

sleep.

more sleep.

help almond joy with the Stafford loan applications.

pay for her swim season.

clear out clothes closet. donate.

from my dept head in Dhaka

the apartment fell through (not available until Jan at the earliest) and could I teach Shakespeare?

kind of hard to focus on grading midterms and essays today when I could be playing on Craigslist and google earth. Neighborhood names mean too little to me -- Is Uttara too far away from the schools? Is Banani better or will the very high rent make it a poor choice?

I said no to the Shakespeare. I never remember the endings -- so each time I go to a Shakespeare in the park, it's new to me. scary.

away

Sunday we woke up far from home after a wedding (and UP!), drive 5 hours through beautiful wide open farmland, home for 2 hours, flew to the southwest, drove for 3 hours up winding roads in the dark and since then I've been at a conference I've wanted to go to for many years. It's always conflicted with the women's studies conference which is now moved to Nov.

still, I'm working hard on the online classes. they only overlap for a few weeks, but the reading and responding and quizzes and keeping up is a bit much when one is very interested in all of the sessions going on.

it's more about the teaching and that serves me well. dinner last night with about 10 colleagues from the college.

also on the agenda in the next week: Chicago for a grad party and D.C. for an orientation. these online classes are both handy and heavy. July will seem easier when just one class is going on. oh, and planning for leaving early Aug. still no apartment there or information about which classes I'll be teaching.

I just can't write any more quizzes

it would be easier to write new quizzes than to check the new editions of two texts to find the questions. if they're still in there.

going away this weekend for 24 hours. then Sunday night, going to a conference for 4 days. would be good to be caught up on quizzes.

I think I'll take a nap.