I’m much calmer now. I’ve been to all my new classes, met the professors, seen the syllabi, started the reading. This semester IS going to be tough… the stats class is going to eliminate a few people, that much is certain, but I’m absolutely sure I won’t be one of those eliminated. Mostly, though, it’s …

I’ve been to two of my three classes now. Monday’s class is the heavy reading one, but Dr. H has more energy and enthusiasm for the topic than ANY professor I’ve ever seen, so I think it’s going to be a good class. Tuesday’s class is the one that begins by reading a matrix algebra …

For whatever reason, I am a worrier. I worry about things that I know are going to happen, things over which I have little or no control, situations where my worry accrues to me absolutely no positive effects. I’ve been increasing degrees of terrified for the last several weeks, and the terror became truly (physically) …

I’ve spent most of the last two days in “new Teaching Assistant” orientation. I won’t prattle on with an uninteresting review of what happened there. What IS notable, however, is the fact that I’ve been operating under the false delusion that I knew when classes start this spring. I was thinking, for months now, that …

Yesterday was weird. I didn’t get up at 6:30 a.m. like usual. I didn’t drive to Denton. I found out health insurance through UTD is WAY cheaper than at TWU. (Another reason to love going to a really big university system.) I had an absolutely kick-ass interview with one of the Plano Public Libraries, for …

to show for it … are three bags of books. Yesterday I went to the UTD bookstore to buy my books for the spring semester. There were, indeed, 21 of them at the bookstore. Thanks to my clever Half-Price Books shopping last December and because one of the 21 I get for free because my …

… to do a massively full day’s work. Traffic was BLISS this morning. I left the house shortly past 7:30 and was at my desk by 8:15. EIGHT FIFTEEN, people!! Miraculous, to be sure. I recruited Catpants to join me for lunch. She’s always a delight to share lunch with. Plus, today I found upon …

and back to “real life” after a GLORIOUS 11 days off for the holidays. But, the upshot is that I’ve only got three days of work this week due to my TA orientation Thursday & Friday. So not so bad. Plus, I hear there’s *NO* traffic today. Apparently, I’m the only one who has to …

Today is my first full day back home for a week. Literally. We left Christmas Eve around 10:30 p.m. for Arkansas, came back to Texas Tuesday for an overnight stay with the zoo, then left at 6 a.m. Wednesday for San Antonio. It was a lot of fun to see all the various family members, …

I’ve been the lucky recipient of several fantastic little bits of good news today … which I’m deigning to call early Christmas presents. Namely: TWU is closing at noon Friday. My boss says we can wear jeans Friday. (We sadly do not recognize the high holiday of Casual Friday, argh.) We’re going to have an …