The End of the Month

We made it through our first real month of having "a budget." I am proud of us. We stayed within our limits in each area, and I think this is going to work. It takes a lot of dedication on my part, since it was kind of my idea and I'm the one who keeps track of numbers, but it's a dedication I'm willing to give if it's going to get our debt paid off sooner than later. And Collin is good at answering my questions when I need them answered. Basically I think there will be two times each month I look at the budget. Once in the beginning, once in the middle. I thank God we don't have much debt and hope this trend will be one we employ the rest of our lives.

I've started reworking a novel I wrote in college. It's the same concept, a similar setting, similar characters ... but totally rethought. I actually LIKE my characters now. I believe in them and in the story in a way I didn't before. I think it is more mature. I've tried to start any number of projects in the past months, and then given up on all of them. Maybe I've been too intimidated. This is something I can work with. Something I know can work because it has before. I guess we'll see how it goes once I reach "the great swampy middle." But I'm excited to be writing again. My goal is to finish this rework in a timely fashion so that I can start work on something else fairly similar ... and start shopping for an agent!

Let's predict the number of rejection letters that await me, shall we? I'll say ... 33.

American Idol and Melinda Doolittle

I don't know how many people who read this blog watch American Idol. I had never watched it before this season, and I watch it now because a girl I stood next to in choir throughout junior high and high school is in the Top 9 (and after tonight's elimination round will hopefully be in the Top 8). Her name is Melinda Doolittle, and I am so proud of her. She is amazing. She was amazing back in the day, and she is even more amazing now. If you haven't been watching the show you should watch it just to see her perform. And if you never thought you would buy into reality TV and actually pick up your phone and VOTE, you should suck down that pride and rethink. Vote for Melinda is what I'm saying!

And now for a shout-out to my friends Sean and Mara from the great state of New Hampshire (Live Free or Die!) ...

These two are having a baby boy here in the next couple of days, if they haven't already, and I say, Congratulations!

Those Drafts

They turned out well, for the most part. I was happy to see long quotes. Most everyone had a "theme," even if some of them weren't the greatest, most interesting themes. Good. I look forward to see what my next class has produced.

My husband and I walked in the rain this morning on the way to class. Amazing how Norman flash-floods. No more than 10 minutes of a downpour and the town is seriously flooded, especially around campus. There are places where you simply can't cross the street without stepping into a foot of water. Thankfully, spring showers are warm or at the very most cool, not freezing. My feet are still damp in my wet, black flats, but they're not frozen.

I've read two books in the past two weeks. One by Jodi Picoult (my recent fave) called The Tenth Circle, one by Stephen King (an old fave) called Lisey's Story. Both are good, though King's took a while for me to get into. He does that. Sometimes you're just not really into his stories until page 200. He's the only author I won't put down right away if I'm bored or confused, because I KNOW I will eventually be interested and it will all make sense. Lisey's Story isn't the best, but it is interesting, if difficult to explain. The reason I mention these books, however, is that they are both set in Maine (no surprise there with King), with Picoult's traveling to Alaska at points. I've often thought of moving up east, but I'm such a wimp with cold weather, I don't know if I would fare very well. And according to what I've read about Alaska in Picoult's book, well, Collin has talked about moving there, and even if he's said it in jest, he's crazy. I couldn't handle the all-day NIGHT and super sub-zero tempies. No sir.

I'm really impatient and want to know where we will end up in a couple of years.

I'm leading Bible study next week for Nicole, and we're going to talk about the woman at the well. This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. How interesting it popped up on my week.

The Interview

My classes have been assigned a feature story. More specifically, a personality profile on someone in the community whom they think is newsworthy. Each student is to interview his or her subject and two others. Each student is to find the "unique whatness" of his or her subject--what makes the subject interesting. Each student is to figure out a theme, or common thread that will weave his or her story together. Students struggle with this concept of theme.

A theme can't be cliche, or shouldn't be. But you can't just write the subject's history or resume. It can't be a chronological story (well, most often it can't). So, for example, one of my students is writing a personality profile on the woman who runs(?) the Big Brothers Big Sisters program here in Norman. My student wants to write a lot about this woman's job, but she can't just report on BBBS. This is a human interest story. So she thought about it and came up with the idea of a matchmaker, except this woman isn't a matchmaker in the sense we first think of (Fiddler on the Roof). She is a different sort of matchmaker. I liked it. I thought it was a good theme for a student writing her first feature story/personality profile.

So today was the first day back for my students after spring break '07. (Spring Break, baby, yeah!) I knew they wouldn't be prepared, wouldn't have completed their interviews, wouldn't really be ready to start thinking about theme and their story leads and nut graphs or to start outlining their stories. So, I tried something new.

I didn't want to just talk at them about how a feature story differs from a basic news story. I've done that before. They don't listen. They needed something more tangible to work with. I went out on a limb and let them interview me. They walked into class. I asked them, "With a show of hands, how many of you have honestly started interviewing for this assignment?" (for which the complete rough draft is due in two days). A few raised their hands. OK. Then, "Take out a sheet of paper. Imagine you're interviewing me for this assignment. You're writing a personality profile on me. You have to find out my 'unique whatness.' Take a few minutes and write down some questions you'd like to ask me."

Now, I talked about this with my husband last night. My students don't need to know me on a deeply personal level. Honestly, I don't really know why. I mean, does their knowing me a little bit personally keep me from teaching them? I don't think so. I also don't think it would keep them from taking me seriously. I can still grade someone unbiasedly if they know me a little bit. I can still help him or her become a better writer (I hope). It's when teachers start getting to know their students and hanging out with them outside of class that is crossing the line, right? I don't do that. But still ... I told my students I reserved the right to make some of the answers up. I couldn't do it. They asked me quetsions that I couldn't make up answers to. So I answered them. But it was a short interview. (And it was interesting how one class pursued a much more personal line of questioning than the other. And the class that didn't--that basically just asked me about work and my caffeine addiction--came up with the better themes.)

This was my goal: students need to realize they can't go out and do a bunch of interviews for a feature story and write/complete the story that night, because what will happen is, they think they've got what they need; they sit down to write; maybe they even have a theme picked out; but then they realize there are HOLES. There is information they need to go back and find out more about. This is true almost every time.

So I asked, "From the information you just extracted, what kind of themes pop out at you." The class then brainstormed. We talked about holes and going back for more, about timing, about a lot of things. I asked them how they might lead into the story. Leads are so very important. I asked them what kind of stories or ideas would they want to develop in the body of the story that back up the theme they'd like to go with. It was good. This made a good transition into talking about the stories they're actually working on.

So, we talked about their stories. About possible themes. We brainstormed. Then the class worked on their stories. I gave them questions to respond to; they started outlining or drafting. I don't care whether a person thinks it's wrong to let her students interview her; I think the class went swimmingly. Goals were met.

Now we'll just have to see how those drafts turn out Thursday.

I am late for a meeting

I need to blog
I shall blog!
(something more meaningful ... soon)
I can't stop coughing
The joys of sickness
I'm jealous Doug got to go to Disneyworld

It's a Beautiful Day!

Yes. Today is a good day. I'm so proud of Collin for giving a great presentation. I wasn't there, but apparently it went really well (I read the evaluations, and they were so encouraging and funny and honest). He's got this incredible gift for teaching, and I know it, and others know it, but he often is too critical of his work to recognize how smart he is, so hearing him say that his instructor praised his performance today was great. I was so happy for him and could see how happy he was. My husband has the ability to make sense of even the hardest concepts; I'm often amazed at what he's able to explain to me through the use of great, real-life examples. I'll be honest, I don't always love it when he says, "Hey, Meghan. Can I tell you about this study I was reading about?" (He likes to practice his lectures on me sometimes.) And I'll sort of begrudgingly say, "Sure." And I'll walk in there and listen, and it all sounds so crazy, and I think I'll never understand it. And I don't care if I don't. But then he asks me, "Do you see what I'm saying?" And he is so genuine and really wants me to get it, and so I say, "No. Not at all." And he'll sit back and think of a different way to explain it, and his excitement is so affecting, and I'll start to really listen, and I'll get it. And I'm so proud of him. Granted, I might not think of what he taught me again, but so it goes; I'm not a psychologist. I'm just proud of him and excited for him. He's going to be an extraordinary teacher! Already is. And he really cares about that. I am so very excited about our future. I wonder where we'll move?

Random aside: I love publishing.

I like this song (but don't really get the lyrics).

I think the song could be even bigger if someone redid it today (not that it's an old song, nor too small). I am thinking about this song because of a King of the Hill episode I just watched. Well, I'd seen the episode before, so I wasn't really watching it. I was really grading papers. I am going through a King of the Hill phase that just won't end. I have three seasons on DVD. It's all I ever watch. EVER.

The song is Life in a Northern Town (heya mamama, heya a myeeya, heya mamama, heeeeeeeya ... Life in a Northern Town). The first verse is about the Salvation Army band playing while children drink lemonade, and the morning lasted all day. All day. Yeah, not so much. But it's a great little feel-good song that reminds me of my youth.

Collin and I went to Bison Witches yesterday for a beverage (and a break from work). It was definitely a break from the current norm, which is, Collin works all day, takes a quick break for dinner and then works some more, then goes to bed. I understand because I was once in grad school. This particular semester is really full for him, so it was nice yesterday that he took a break from the norm. I know he wanted to go work out, but I guess that's part of what marriage is all about ... putting another's desires before your own. I would love it if this were really natural for me.

Back to Life in a Northern Town ... is that song about a young man going to war?

Back to school: I've gotten a lot of grading done in the past 48 hours. This is good.

I WANT TO GO TO THE BEACH!!!

Need More Coffee

I find myself more angry this semester when students aren't prepared. The thing that's crazy is that they have attitude with me when they're not prepared. I guess I've dealt with this for years, but sometimes I get more of it, and that's what it feels like right now. Maybe my patience has just run thin. As Mr. Strickland's wife, Miz Liz, would say, "My purse of forgiveness is empty." I guess my "purse of forgiveness" should never be entirely empty. And really it's not. I do care for these kids. But sometimes .... man oh man.

Yes, Why All the Editing?

At least one of you has asked why my blogs seem to disappear. The thing is, a few days ago I received an email concerned about my blogging, or, the pouring out of my soul. The concerns weren't without warrant. There is a lot of hype about employers looking at blogs, online predators, you know the story. This is all fair. But the thing is, I have this tendency to want everyone's approval, so when I read the email I immediately wanted to throw up and was pretty much depressed the rest of the day. Me being me, I directly logged onto Blogger and edited all of my non-picture blogs to "save draft."

Collin said he wasn't surprised I did that.

Today I worked on the mag (after taking care of the boys for a couple of hours this morning; I tell you I love them more and more every week). I got a lot of work done but wasn't able to mark off many pages as "done" because there's so much little work to do here and there. The mag that comes out tomorrow should be good. I'm happy about it. I think my "letters" harken back to the old days, when I was witty. I think I got bored by the end of last semester and just wasn't as "on." Well, friends, I'm on again. For now.

That's right ... more pictures!

This time of the honeymoon. I just got these on disc today. For some reason we felt the need to go around making cheezy faces and poses in all of our pictures. It was fun.

Oops, I did this out of order. Note to follow ...

For Kara (and others)!

Here are some of the disposable camera pics from the wedding. They're kind of fuzzy, but I guess that will have to do. Still waiting on those wedding pics. Nicole said six weeks. The tension is mountin!! (Just kidding ... but, of course, I can't wait!)

Some Favorite Pics of the Year (Not Exhaustive)

Courtney was just showing. Or should I say, Knox was just showing.
Anna Apple
In the beginning ...
Z Group #1
Back in the long-hair days ...

Della Dawn Dot made this for me.
Baby Knox at the mall in his cute blue jumper.
Ah, youth group. Pizza Party!
My first ever layer cake ... for the Bruning Baby Bash.
Fuzzy but still so cute. Now I just need one of Whit.

The lovely Nicole.
Me thinks I see Mother Mary.
My awesome leather jacket. Why do I like this pic?
My dear friend, and Sunday School pal, Sarah.
She's doing my hair for the wedding!

Awwwwww ... you're my best friend.
Three lovely ladies.
Yay for nights on the town. What a striking coat.
We miss you, Laura ... and your hubby.
Kirsten MADE us this beautiful blanket!

Long Overdue Pics

We had a blast that night. I hope we can do it again soon. Perhaps tonight will be somewhat of a repeat!