Medium Dawn Felagund of the Fountain

It is presently icing/sleeting outside and has been for now going on 12 hours. Schools are already delayed two hours tomorrow morning with "morning reevaluation," which means that they're at least considering closing altogether. I can always use a snow day; I always have stuff to do. I finished the short article based on my Mythmoot presentation and turned it in yesterday; today was the SWG newsletter; tomorrow could be revising and turning in my article on the SWG for the Signum University Eagle. That would put me in a really good place. So ... *crosses fingers*

It's March One, so ... B2MeM! I think probably everyone here who is Tolkienish has heard about it, but if you have not, check it out. It's a great event this year, which I can say without feeling like I'm tooting my own horn since I am not running it this year and had almost nothing to do with planning it: a marketplace format, where participants "sell" and "buy" prompts using imaginary coin. There are many, many excellent prompts. As a mod, I get an email for every comment left on mod posts, and I was reading all of the prompts as they came in but stopped because I was wanting to buy everything that came in.

I went to register for my last class before the thesis (Romantic and Industrial Revolutions) on Friday, and it doesn't start till April, so I have another month off from for-credit coursework. This means that I should be able to get a big jump on my reading. It will probably mean that I dick around with B2MeM, thesis research, and other fannish things instead. I should at least download the syllabus so that I can at least pretend I'm going to do something with it.

Because there's nothing better to do on an "ice day" than play with green, living things, I showed some love to my houseplants today, and Bobby and I started the year's tomato and pepper seeds. My succulents are all throwing off baby plants since I've been doing better with fertilizing them properly; I need to re-pot these and then find new homes for them. Otherwise I'll be like the Duggars of succulents; I already have several baby aloe plants that I was supposed to give away years ago. I just get attached and don't want to give them away.

All in all, this was a pretty dull weekend, but productive. I'd love to extend it to a third day!

Well, now on top of our winter woes, I have a cold. Bobby has been fighting one off for days, and it was inevitable that I'd catch it, and I did.

It was back to work today; Baltimore County schools opened regular time. (Carroll County schools remained closed since we got hit with the worst of the storm.) The drive to work this morning was quite startling. Branches and trees are down everywhere. The damage is substantial. It looks worse than the tropical storms of the past few years.

Everything here is still coated in ice. Drive even just five minutes south, and most of the trees have thawed, but it doesn't appear to have gotten above freezing here today. We lost another branch in the yard from one of the maples that took down part of the chicken run. Luckily, the damage was not bad, and Bobby was able to repair it this afternoon.

Freyja was due to be spayed today, so we loaded her into her carrier to drive her to the vet's office this morning. Ten minutes on the road and they called to cancel her appointment because the office is still without power. So we turned around and drove her home. She is spared again! She was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but we had to reschedule for today because the after-school program started up Tuesday, and we would have had to pick her up right in the middle of it, which was impossible. Hopefully three is a charm and her next appointment will actually happen.

I am almost ready to start writing my final paper for my current class. I really drag these things out ridiculously. I have one more article to read; I have written a draft thesis statement and a quick outline, so it will just be a matter, this weekend, of writing each section. If I can do two or three sections a day, then most of the paper will be done this weekend. Those who think I work too hard will be proud that I downloaded another book by Rousseau yesterday (my Kindle has 3G--dangerous because I can continue to download books even without Internet or power) that I do not actually intend to read for my paper. I decided against it. I have already read three books by Rousseau in excess of what I was required to read for the class, plus the usual collection of articles and book chapters, so I decided to give this one a pass.

This means that I am actually reading something at the moment that is not school-related! (It is still academic-related, for my "Tree of Tales" paper ... baby steps, people!) The book is called The Song of Middle-earth by David Harvey. I'm actually rather disappointed in it so far. It was written about 30 years ago, so the Silm and UT were available, but the book seems to mostly summarize the texts. How annoying! I would assume that if someone is buying a book about Tolkien, then one has actually read Tolkien. He frequently reaches the point where I think he is going to get into something deep and thought-provoking, and then just kind of peters out. He makes some good points about Tolkien's legendarium not being derivative; he starts to delve into world cosmogony but flakes out with a statement that Ainulindalë shares several themes with other world myths. Aaaaand? (He also falls into the trap that I've found to be rather frequent of stating that a particular archetype is "common" in world creation stories when reading a boatload of world creation stories has convinced me that this is not the case.) He also doesn't seem to be much of a writer, and it is hard sometimes to see how his ideas are connected. (This reminds me of an objective that I frequently include when writing Written Content goals for student IEPs: The student will use transitions to show the connections among ideas within and between paragraphs in a multi-paragraph composition. He could use that objective in his hypothetical IEP.) Since he deals with mythological themes and cosmogony in particular, then it was a book that I pretty much had to read before undertaking the next revision of my paper, and I do hope my opinion of it improves. But so far, I'm not enjoying it much more than if I'd read the other work by Rousseau, and that is saying something.

I was so busy this week with graduation that I didn't get to post about last weekend. Friday was Bobby's and my seventeenth anniversary. (We celebrate in years together, not in years married; I was fourteen and he'd just turned fifteen when we started dating!)

Unfortunately, the date of our anniversary, we barely got to spend any time together. We had work during the day, of course, and in the evening, I had my dance show, and he had his Outdoor Emergency Management class for ski patrol. We both got home late and went right to bed. We did get to have a romantic lunch together at Quizno's! When I went out to the car, he'd left a dozen red roses on the seat. Awwww ... :)

Preparing for the dance show started on Thursday. We had our dress rehearsal that night. ( More and Pictures below the Cut )

Thursday, I will have been teaching for two years, because I started student teaching on the 31st two years ago. Growing up, a year did not pass without a single snow day. The first day with students for my internship was closed for ice; an auspicious beginning? mrrrrp! Not! More like a jinx! Since then, we haven't had a single snow day. I feel I should apologize to fellow Maryland teacherkind for jinxing one of the best perks of the job. We live in a magical place that generally gets snow every year but not enough to invest in what it takes to send kids to school during our couple-few annual snowfalls. Last year, we didn't even get a single snow delay or early dismissal. Boo!

Things are looking up a little on that front. Last Thursday, we had a two-hour delay. Friday, we had a two-hour early dismissal, both due to inclement weather. This morning, another two-hour delay. Baltimore County, the district our schedule usually follows, was closed for students today, as were most local school districts, so there was a rather puzzling "two-hour delay for nonpublic bus service" this morning, which translated to nonpublics (like us) going in two hours late. Had schools been open for students, we probably would have been closed, as it didn't get above freezing here until late morning. The jinx strikes again!

The delay couldn't have come at a better time. I woke up at about 1 AM last night and didn't fall back to sleep till about 4:30 AM, so the few extra hours were very welcome.

It's third quarter, starting today, believe it or not, so the year is halfway over. In my two years of teaching, this is the best I've done in getting my grades done on time. Yay me. I have a few loose ends to tie up and that's it; they're ready to go in. No crunching them on the day they're due at 4 PM with Bobby tapping his toe in the doorway to the teacher resource room! Grades always seem to come due at the same time as multiple other obligations.

Speaking of Bobby, he took and passed his first assessment for National Ski Patrol this weekend. He went on a "ski along" (he's a snowboarder, but the National Ski Patrol tends not to be very PC in their inclusion of boarders, I guess!) on Saturday and took some skills tests and got invited to the next stage. It will be a pretty intense year if he makes the final cut--they're accepting 12 new candidates this year, and he thinks he has a good shot--but it sounds like a hella cool part-time job once all the training's done.

What else? Life for me is 1) teaching, 2) grad school, 3) fannish projects. The usual line-up. I did actually go out the weekend before last in the evening to see my dance teacher's band perform. I had two Guinnesses, hung out with friends not my husband (although he was there too), and almost felt like a normal young person.

Speaking of grad school, if anyone knows (or is!) a practicing Hindu or Confucian who'd be willing to do an email interview with yours truly, please let me know. I have to interview both for my history of religion class, for my final comparative project. Comment here, PM me, or email me at DawnFelagund@gmail.com if you can help me out; it would be very, very, very much appreciated.

village_of_geckos and her boyfriend left this morning after visiting since Monday afternoon. What a great time we had! I miss them already! Monday, we basically chilled and went to Arooga's for dinner. Tuesday was our big day: We spent the day in Gettysburg, which is about 45 minutes northwest of us, and had a firepit at night. We went through the museum, hoofed all over the battlefield and town, had dinner and beer at a local microbrewery, and climbed the tower on Culp's Hill. Last night, we had a massive cookout and crab feast with my parents. In between, we managed to solve all of the world's problems and catch up from the past three years since we saw each other last in Ireland.

I just sent off my first unit of lesson plans to my principal, so that's water under the bridge, although I'll still probably be working on materials (especially graphics, since my work laptop doesn't have Photoshop) over the next few days. I'm hoping to get ahead and stay ahead. I'd like to be able to show up at work on Monday and print out the materials for the next two weeks. How awesome that would be.

I've been "writing"--mentally, of course--quite a bit lately. Original and fanfic. I'm not quite to the point of putting anything to paper, although I'm considering just diving into the AMC prequel, t'hell with being prepared. After all, I didn't prepare at all to write AMC; might as well keep with the spirit, eh? I have a couple of chapters on the prequel from years ago. I'm trying to discipline myself into making room for my own time again. What a concept! I've backed off a bit from certain commitments I've taken on in the past few years, given up entirely on some and moved others lower on my list of priorities.

Speaking of AMC, Bobby is reading it. I am still not sure that was a good idea; it is very long, and he's still never made it all the way through The Silmarillion. I've been told it stands on its own quite well; I suppose this will be the test of that. Last I checked, he was at the end of Chapter Four and was--like most people who read AMC--liking Carnistir the best. He told me that he liked it, but he would.

I have registered for my fall grad school classes. I'm starting later this year, which I hope will help and give me a chance to get lesson plans and materials created well in advance of when they're needed. I'm taking two classes: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the History of Religion. The first class is an eight-weeker; another good thing, as I'll only have one class for half of the semester and will still earn six credits.

Okay, now for some random pictures, mostly butterflies, a coupla sunflowers, and one random Phil.

( Pictures of Stuff )

The final paper from HELL that is! I finished it late this afternoon. I still have revisions to do, some trimming, tidying of footnotes, all that, but the thing is written at least. This paper has been a nightmare. It is very out of character for me to not enjoy a writing assignment. It wasn't even a lack of interest in the topic--industrialized agriculture and its impact on the U.S. city in the mid-twentieth century to present (eegads)--but was the approach and, yeah okay, the insecurity. 1) This is my first ever history class. 2) This is the only writing assignment in the class so I have zero sense of the professor's expectations, and this paper counts for 30% of my grade. 3) In typical fashion for my university, when I emailed the professor with a question about the paper taken directly from the syllabus, he seemed completely clueless about what the syllabus contained. That always makes me nervous, as I'm one of those people who reads all of the course documents on the first day of class and revisits them pretty much weekly to make sure I'm on target. Syllabi are my security blanket.

Anyway, it's done, and I don't even think it's that bad.

This pretty much commandeered my weekend. It was possibly the most beautiful weekend of the year too. Well, all was not lost. Yesterday was the first day for the Westminster farmers' market; it started early this year, which Bobby found out quite by accident while looking at the Carroll County Times yesterday. We didn't even need much, but it was good to see our farmers' market friends; I sometimes think farmers' market is as much about socialization as food. We were photographed and interviewed by the Carroll County Times, so we may get five minutes of local fame. (This would be Bobby's second time this year, as he was on the front page--the front page!!--of the Carroll County Times when he won the charity snowboard event earlier this year.)

Last night, we saw the first lightning bugs of the season. Bobby saw some earlier in the evening, and we were sitting outside and I whined, "I really want to see a lightning bug tonight!" and flashflashflash--just like that, one blinked along the treeline.

After I finished the paper this afternoon, Bobby, the Goldens, and I took a walk down Charlotte's Quest. I had so much laundry to do today it wasn't even funny; I haven't even touched laundry in weeks. This evening, aside from laundry and cleaning up the kitchen, I realized that I had no actual obligations to fulfill, so I took a bath and read Game of Thrones. Tomorrow it will be back to chipping away at the long-neglected stuff on my to-do list (a calligraphy project, a beta, SWG stuff ... eep!) but tonight? Tonight was blissful nothing.

Last night, I finished the big research paper on Beowulf that I've been writing for grad school. I finished it two weeks and one day before it was due--woohoo! I worked my butt off over winter break to make that possible, in hopes that I will actually have some spare time during January before my next class starts in February. (That spare time will probably be eaten up by getting ready for Back to Middle-earth Month, but such is life!) And I'm really pleased with the paper too.

Second good thing: the Broncos beat the Steelers tonight! w0000000t! Yes, I know there are nice Steelers' fans out there, but in our area, they're almost universally obnoxious. Case in point: Bobby went snowboarding today, so we went out to the Greene Turtle to grab dinner when he got home and to catch the end of the game. Per usual, there were a handful of Steelers' fans there. Now I'm all for cheering and celebrating when one's team does something nifty, but shrieking at the top of one's lungs at every good play the Steelers make is a bit over-the-top for me. As is making loud statements like, "Suckit, Ravens' fans!" in a restaurant while people are eating. Anyway, Tim Tebow and Demaryius Thomas made short work of overtime after the Steelers tied it up near the end of the game; Tebow threw a gorgeous pass that Thomas ran 80 yards down to end the game. I had just been complaining about the seemingly unnecessarily convoluted new NFL overtime rules (they actually do make sense; I just like complaining about the NFL), but I stopped complaining after that. So I'm a newly minted Tim Tebow fan, but that will be short-lived, I promise. I have no problem with people believing in a personal god (so long as they respect my right not to) but do think people who believe said personal god gives a woof about the outcome of a football game to be rather foolish.

The Ravens play the Texans next Sunday at home. I think things look really good for us. 1) We are more than a season undefeated at home. 2) We are undefeated this season against every team we played with a winning record. 3) We are undefeated in our division, which is the hardest division in the NFL. (Three of four teams in the division made the playoffs.)

Okay, off to watch a documentary about bees--woo! What an exciting life!

Yesterday, Bobby and I went to the livestock auction in Westminster. It was our third time going: once for chicks, twice for Ameraucanas, and the third time to replace the roosters. Well, we struck out the first two times, but three's a charm, and we came home with five fluffy hens: three Delawares and two New Hampshire Reds. We've already gotten two eggs out of them.

The roosters are gone. Bobby found a guy and his wife with a farm that pretty much collect chickens because they like them. He had an ad up on Craigslist and was happy to take our four fellows off of our hands. We dropped them off on Tuesday. It was a little sad saying goodbye, to the little reds at least. (The Rocks weren't particularly friendly and smelled bad and Dicey Riley clawed up my arm when I was trying to catch him on Saturday.) Sophia fluttered into my arms for one last time, and we walked out to the shed to refill the feeder, and that was it. But they're in a good place now.

As we drove away from the farm, Bobby's iPod shuffled the Dubliner's song "Dicey Riley." Ha!

( And School ... )