Bearshorty's musings

Today was much colder and snowier than the forecast predicted. I wore my shuba (fur coat) so I was very warm and the snow looked very pretty - large, white beautiful snowflakes. After a weekend of bitter cold, with high of 11F (-11.5C), today wasn't as bad as it could have been with maybe 25F (-4C) high.

What really messed the commute up was not the snow but the holiday weekend schedule. Today is President's Day and many people have a day off work like my Dad or Bear. I, on the other hand, had to go to work. It is not a day that absolutely every one has off. It depends on your company. But all the subways and trains are on the weekend schedule with fewer trains and weekend work and all sorts of fun. I didn't realize this until I was almost at my train this morning.

The subway was late and I thought, well, I'll be late, I'll catch the next train. But by the time the subway made it to my destination, I though that I might have time to catch the usual one. But there were no newspaper people by the subway station and the street was emptier than usual, and as I got to the entrance of the train station, it finally dawned on me why it would be emptier. I pulled out my phone with the train schedule app and saw that trains were running once an hour (instead of four trains an hour during rush hour) and the next train was 45 minutes wait. I slowed down my super walk and sighed. I didn't stress about it - no one comes to office hours at this point of the semester.

The commute ended up being worse on the way back. The train was 20 minutes later than usual but it came on time despite the ever increasing unexpected big snowstorm. It was the subway that messed everything up because during the weekend my subway line doesn't stop at the usual stop due to various work. I had to take another line to go further downtown and then I ended up waiting 40 minutes for my subway line to show up. There was no reason given, it was just super late. So I came home an hour later than usual. I read my book and listened to music so it wasn't so bad. Bear was home with Tanya and I wasn't rushing to work, so I didn't stress too much. But I guess this semester is all about weird commute.

Otherwise, my Monday was fine. I graded on the train, taught paragraphs and connections, made peer review sheets, read my book (I'm back reading "Buried Giant" by Ishiguro - it took me 100 something pages to realize that this book is not meant as a historical novel set in 6th century Britain, but a historical fantasy set in fantasy 6th century Britain where dragons and ogres are real). I don't really care about the Grammys but I had it on in the background for a bit so I could watch the opening number from Hamilton. I was singing all the words. And I watched "Downton Abbey" episode from yesterday. I found that on teaching days, I can't grade in the evening - I really need to decompress. 13 papers left to do by Thursday.

This weekend was nice. We went to Long Island to visit Bear's parents. Bear took a day off on Friday because we needed to both be at the post office to apply for Tanya's passport. All three of us had to be there in person, according to the rules. Tanya and I went to a local store two weeks ago to get her passport photo done - it was surprisingly easy. She looked at the camera at the second try. She is mostly fascinated at new places and observes. Don't put up a fuss. So that helped a lot. I really thought it would take a lot longer.

Anyway, on Friday, once we got back from the post office, we had lunch, finished packing and drove to Long Island. There was a snow forecast of Saturday and cold, so we didn't want to get stuck anywhere and thought we might as well go early. There is a lot more snow on the ground in Long Island than in Brooklyn. Tanya and Bear ended up playing in the snow in the back year for a bit, while I unpacked.

The weekend itself was nice. I spent most of it at the kitchen table grading papers. But I got a lot of work done, while also making time to socialize (Bear's brother and his girlfriend came over on Saturday so her kind of birthday party). And, most importantly, I finished the 3rd Robert Galbraith book. I read the last 50% in three days, while traveling and grading. so that's a sign of a good book for me. I just wanted to keep reading. I will do that book post sometime this week to talk about this year's books but overall I do really enjoy these detective novels.

The snow storm on Thursday made this week feel strange. My university first cancelled all morning classes late Wednesday night. One of my classes was therefore cancelled but not the second one. I was supposed to give the midterm and I didn't want anybody not showing up because of the storm and having to do a make up later. Plus going in for just one class was not worth it with all the commute. So late Wednesday I cancelled my second class and rightly so for on Thursday morning University realized that the snow kept falling. All classes cancelled officially. Papa worked from home and Mama was watching Tanya and I could grade some papers. The snow was very pretty and heavy.

On Wednesday afternoon my Mom picked Tanya and me up and we left for my parents' house for the next week and a half. Bear has started his work season where he needs to stay late at work from Tuesday to Friday and works Saturday morning with Sundays and Mondays off. It is much easier for him to stay at his parents' house on late nights as his work is much closer to their house. And my parents love having Tanya around. And as much as it is often difficult for my Mom and I to be under the same roof, it is ultimately better for Tanya. And Papa can drive me to work instead of me taking the train. Next week Bear needs to work Monday so he is just coming here tomorrow and I'm staying put. But regularly until May I will spend Tuesday afternoon to Saturday morning at my parents.

I definitely can get some grading done while my parents play with my kid and I have Folder Review on Monday (meeting with a program director) so I need to get a lot done. There is plenty of misreading and failing grades. And one student fudged formatting and thought I wouldn't notice how wide the spacing was. I pulled up his paper since they have to submit it online as well as a hard copy and I 'fixed' his formatting. It was 4 pages instead of 5.

My Mom picked up us on Wednesday instead of Tuesday because Tanya had her pediatrician appointment on Wednesday for her last two vaccines until August. She is 69cm already and 17.5 pounds. She's getting heavy.

The doctor, however, is overly concerned that she is not sitting independently yet. She can sit, she just still leans forward a little though and is not sitting up by herself. She rolls around a lot; it's hard to contain her and she gets to toys easier that way. I think she is still a little scared of sitting. I read that on average babies sit at 6 and a half but there is no worry until eight months. And my Dad sat later and so did many other babies I heard about. So I am not worried at all. But my doctor thinks action should be taken now and I should call the early development program to have her evaluated. She already wants to say that Tanya has a gross motor delay. But Tanya does absolutely all other skills and American Pediatric Association only says diagnosis is appropriate at 9 months nor at 7. I get that the doctor just wants the best for Tanya but I think it is really too early to worry and it makes me a little uncomfortable. I'll probably call anyway, it wouldn't hurt I just don't think it is really of such an immediate concern.

This has been a weird week. We had two snow storms in New York and because of them and because of the wake and the funeral for Bear's Grandma I only worked one day this week. And I spent three days and nights in Long Island at Bear's parents' house.

The wake was originally scheduled for Monday but Monday morning came with the gigantic snowstorm (a very pretty snowstorm after it all settled, but still). I was all ready to go to work and then take a train to Long Island, but my classes were cancelled for the day because of the storm. So I was just going to go with Bear straight to his parents. As we left around 9am, his Dad called to say that because of the snow they decided to postpone the wake to the next day and funeral for Wednesday. But we were already on the road, driving slowly and carefully and we decided to just keep going. That way we could be there for his parents and Bear could shovel their driveway and do anything snow related that needed to be done. I spent most of the day in their house commenting on rough drafts.

On Tuesday, I cancelled my classes at University so I could go to the wake. I worked on papers in the morning. Then we spend 2 to 4 and then 7 to 9 at a funeral home for the viewing and went to eat in between at an Italian place. Bear's godmother Mary drove all the way from Pennsylvania for three hours to be there and it was nice to see her despite the circumstances. She just came for the afternoon because of the Wednesday expected snow/ice storm and drove four hours back that day. Viewing are generally pretty strange.

On Wednesday, my school had a delayed opening because of the new snow storm and after some debate in the morning whether I should try to go teach my afternoon class (my morning one was cancelled) I decided to just cancel it so I could go to the funeral and also not travel in nasty ice rain. Bear's family is Catholic, so there was a funeral mass and then we drove in a family limo for an hour to a cemetery in Queens. There weren't a lot of people (a lot more came the night before) because of the storm but it was a very classy family goodbye. The cemetery service was very quick because of cold, freezing icy rain and then we went back to Long Island and went to lunch where we could reminisce about Carolina a little. In the late afternoon, Bear spend some time looking at his grandmother's photo albums and I was looking at the family tree book one of the relatives has made. Carolina was one of nine children. She was of a German descent and the family member traced the family back to 1680 in Germany. I do love geneology. Plus the book had various memories of Carolina too. Bear told me he felt like Harry Potter who discovers in Book 7 that he didn't know Dumbledore at all, since he only knew his grandmother as his grandmother and only at a certain point of her life. I think it is true of all people, though.

On Thursday, I needed to head back to work and it was long, long trip by two trains that took close to four hours. And it was still very icy, so I tried to walk slowly and carefully. I taught my classes and then my Dad picked me up and drove me home finally. And I caught up on the Internet. And watched a bit of Olympic Games too. I really love the Olympics so I'm looking forward to that. But, yes, a heavy weird week.

Well, today totally qualifies as the strangest first day of class I've had. New York is covered in many many inches of snow right now and it is affecting everything. It was already snowing at 8am when I met up with Rosemary for our commute to University for the orientation for the Writing Program we as teachers needed to go to. The drive there was pretty good, despite a bit of snow. But it was clear as early as 10am that the snow would only get worse.

I did manage to get copying done and talk to administrators I had to talk to and after the orientation I took a campus bus to the new campus I'm teaching on. I've never really been to that part of University, so I stopped by the Student Center to explore my food options (very nice ones with pizza and Chinese and burgers and nice cafe) where I had pizza and then took the bus a few more stops to my building.

I had maybe an hour and a half before class and I spent most of it chatting with another teacher, also waiting for her class as we were figuring out the classrooms and the buildings neither of us been in before. It was there that we found out that the University cancelled classes after 3pm. One of my classes ends at 3pm and another starts at 3:20. So I send a homework mass email to my second cancelled class and actually got to teach the first. They were mostly writing a Writing Sample, so first day is pretty easy.

Once I found out that I will be done at 3, I called my Dad who works maybe an hour away. He wanted to pick me us since he was leaving work early and then I could stay at my parents' house. The problem was that he came across two accidents and massive snow and it took him 4 hours to get to me, finally picking me up at 5pm. I had my Kindle with me, at least, which I read while I waited. (I got Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling out of the online library yesterday). It took us a bit to get to his house too. But finally, after much careful driving, we made it safely.

Tomorrow will be super cold with lots of snow on the ground. Local College cancelled morning classes until 11. So one of my history classes is cancelled tomorrow while I have to go in at 1pm. My Dad is working from his house tomorrow, so he can drive me. My problem is that most of my notes for the intro class are at my place, so I will just have to wing it tomorrow unless Local College would cancel afternoon classes too. We'll see.

At least in the evening I was able to catch up to "Teen Wolf" on my parents' computer and watch a new episode of "Supernatural" on their very large TV.

19 inches of snow. University only cancelled classes before 11:30 and as I teach after 1:30 I had to get to work. I did cancel the office hours in the late morning. So the day felt a bit surreal with no traffic and the whole world being white and clear.

( Some pictures of our snow )

In the morning I read and commented on a few close reading assignments. Many talked around the issue without clearly defining anything and many just paraphrased the whole two paragraphs and thought that it was analysis. Sigh. Run-ons also continue to be a problem. I was happy to see that one of my students from Basic Comp had the clearest paragraph that actually answered the assignment question and set up what the debate was in the fair use paragraphs. I was very proud of him. He definitely can write his ideas better now and I’d like to think that I had a little bit to do with it.

The classes went alright. We went over what makes a good paper, the structure of it. And the grading criteria. Then I actually made them take a piece of paper and draw a line on it, writing out how Jenkins would answer the assignment question and then how they would. I wanted them to make sure that the answer was not identical since that would not make a string thesis. I still know they will go for simple. My goal this semester is to get them to complicate their argument just a little bit.

First two minutes of today’s “Community” were so funny I couldn’t stop laughing. I need to rewatch it tomorrow. Good episode of Bones too. ( Bones )

Yemen joins the growing list of countries rioting against their governments .

49 out of 50 states have snow. That’s the whole South. And some people don’t want to see that the weather is changing. We got a good amount of snow but now as much as in post-Christmas blizzard. Since we aren’t actually blocked in our house, it is a plus.

‘Got Medieval’ has a great response to Palin’s use of ‘blood libel’ and the subsequent Jewish WTF response to that.

I turned on TV at 9pm (while still doing the free stepping thing in Wii – I do like the option of watching tv while technically exercising) to see “Modern Family” and ended up watching Obama’s speech from Arizona memorial service. It was a good speech. I really liked the part that we should aim our government to be like the little girl saw it. It was a bit unsettling to go to “Modern Family” comedy right after that for a few minutes. Good show, though, as usual.

I had my sonogram at the urologist’s office today. Everything looks fine so I’m happy with that. I really liked the sonogram technician. She kept up fun dialogue and generally made it fun. One more test on Friday.

Exercise: 36 min on Wii. I really like the advance bicycle course and I think I got over the virtual dog running after me. (I have a phobia for real dogs; I’m usually ok with dogs in pictures and such but first time I did the bike game when the virtual dog started running after me I got very uncomfortable. But my brain is back to seeing it as not a real dog.)

Cross stitch: tan on the little bear’s face and paws and some light brown for his ears.

We got snowed in. Our little community usually does not get cleared until other streets are clear and there are not a lot of places to shovel snow at. It is a good thing I don’t have to leave the house until Wednesday. The world is very white and wintery outside.

We were planning to go to Brooklyn today to give my grandmother her birthday presents (she turned 81 today) but it will have to wait until next weekend.

I need to limit my internet time. No non-essential stuff doing the day.

First snow! Well, it was more flurries but still – snow! I do love snow. I have fond memories of playing in the snow as a child and sledding and cross country skiing. My childhood winters were very snowy in a country that was equipped to deal with snow, so snow was never a horrible tragedy like it seems to be here. There weren’t too many cars at the time too. So first snow always makes me happy.

Now that it has actually gotten cold, I want to go outside for walks more. This is weird. I think it is because I do love the crispy air and also because the Christmas lights are up. So it all feels festive. I went around and took some pictures of Christmas lights tonight. During my first Christmas season, I was thirteen and we lived in Brooklyn. And December and holiday decorations took us by such surprise. We lived in this Italian neighborhood that was heavily decorated and I remember when Papa and I were walking around just admiring all the lights. It was amazing to us that nobody was stealing them!

Second season of “Men of Certain Age” premiered tonight. I started watching it last year because of Scott Bakula but ended up watching it because it was so much fun to watch. I really like the friendship of the three main characters and how the people feel like real people with real problems that don’t need Hollywood soap opera plots. And they talk like real people too. So I am looking forward to this second season.