little fluffy clouds

Whooooo! Just came out of class and am floating on a little teaching cloud. Made all the better by the fact that I was really underenthused this morning about having to get up early to finish the reading. There's really no reason on earth to procrastinate about doing the reading. I'm teaching NOVELS this term, after all. Hardly painful. (Though they are long.)

The challenge I'm setting myself for this weekend: to do all of the novel-reading for the week by Sunday night. That way my class prep during the week can be more creative lecture-planning, criticism-reading, idea-generating. No more of this get up at 7 a.m. to read the assigned chapters. I can do it, right? (I have never yet in all my years of teaching done the reading that much ahead of time, but I think it would make me happier the morning of class.)

But back to the fluffy mood I'm in. I'm pumped that class went well, that I'm done teaching for the week, that the sun is supposed to appear this weekend, that my gf is finally over her evil virus.

Plus, I've received 5 compliments in the last two days on my new haircut. Which is really my Old Hair -- it's basically how I used to cut it back in 1988 or so. I'm reclaiming my past. But for my colleagues (the source of 2 of the comments) to even notice my hair is kind of surprising. So maybe it's more of a change than I realised. In any case, I'm enough of a girl to like getting compliments. (Though I did have a slightly weird moment when Colleague H effused over my hair and I remembered another colleague, who is friends with him, telling me apropos of some other random hair conversation, "Colleague H likes girls with short hair." Why she knows this I don't know and didn't want to ask.)

A couple hours of setting up my gradebook spreadsheet & clearing junk off my desk, then I'm off to yoga and it's the weekend! During which I will read the novel I'm teaching next week and, more importantly, work on my article. All play and no work makes Mel a dull mind. Right?