13 September 2009

Lovely Weekend!

Putting aside stress and fears, it has been an absolutely perfect weekend here in the mountains. I am a girl of the autumn, and that's been the weather. The cool breezes have been flowing through the flat, inspiring fun rides into the mountains. Eric's been completely caught up in the outdoor sports, which is understandable given the absolute perfect 65-75 degrees. It's been also a week of investigation withe the successful discovery of a great Mexican restaurant in Morrison, a interesting lapidary in Golden, and an excellent Mediterranean restaurant in Denver. I think of Denver as the 'new yuppie town' and all the outskirting towns attached the older western frontier towns...mostly because that's exactly what it is. Golden, Littleton and Morrison are my favourites so far with Golden stretching slightly ahead. The traffic for Red Rocks in Morrison would get on even my nerves, although nobody can argue with the awesomeness of their 'town park' with completely awesome hiking trails. Although we've been here for nearly three months, I finally feel like we're getting to know the area comfortably.

I'm a little bitter that we have to pay for a month's rent for the flat when we won't even be here for six weeks, but considering the enjoyment of travel, it's not such a painful pill to swallow. However, this next week being the last week we'll be here until the first of November, we're packing in as much exploration as possible for everything from the Art Museum to the Acquariam to the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Here are pictures of fun things we got at the lapidary. The people there are starting to recognize us now :)

A silver and turquoise cross made by the Zuni tribe - etched in the silver on the back.

Adamite Mapimi from Mexico

A slab of lacy blue agate

Petrified wood

11 September 2009

Always in waves...

Why does everything come in waves? There's never a consistent level of work in my line of work. After a month of designing and uploading three 13 week courses for PSEO general education, on top of convincing faculty that, 'yes, it could be fun to teach high schools college level work for college credit' (that didn't go well), my whole body wanted to collapse. Just as a perspective, a month is an incredibly short period of time for that amount of work. It takes several hours per course just to get it online, not counting the design effort and responding to expert reviews.

...and of course that's at the same time that two new core courses, two new electives, and two older courses with edits have to be finished and uploaded by Tuesday. My boss asked me when I could get a new project done that he threw my way last week. I started giggling hysterically.

Why is everything always so last minute? Mostly because the markets make us stay 'agile' and the trying to get curriculum completed way ahead time is defeating to the goal of providing current data to the students. Now that the core courses are nearly done for the BA, I spend the majority of my time on editing older curriculum to keep it up to date and keeping faculty current with technology. Special projects like PSEO are...well, special. Usually bullet to the brain special.

The bonus to waves is that once they are done crashing, it smoothes out a bit before the next wave starts. I'm forcasting calm seas for a couple months at least starting Tuesday :)

My eye of the storm has been reading The Kite Runner. Tea and reading is my break, and it's making everything calmer. Thank GOD for parents who like to visit and support us! Any bad karma that I have gained over time is nicely balanced with being born incredibly lucky.

06 September 2009

Bleeding Kansas Bleeding Kansas by Sara Paretsky


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

View all my reviews >>

Yes, I'm Alive...

My uselessness with blog presence has been at an all time high recently. My professional blogs haven't been touched in months and I almost feel ill with the amount of work that I'm realising for my doctorate program that starts again Tuesday, not to mention several projects at work that resemble one of the lower levels of hell. So why did I take on a new commitment at work? My problem is that I see future potential and often forget to calculate the cost for getting there.

I feel a bit discouraged for no terribly obvious reason, so I'll focus on the positive feelings of a great trip to Indianapolis, Chicago and Bellaire. Over three thousand miles later, my adorable Mini looks none the worse for wear. The amazement is that despite nearly three weeks in the Midwest, I still didn't get everything I had hoped done! It was a great time though being with local friends, seeing the usual 'conference' crowd from the UK, and getting valuable lake time at my grandparents.

Despite the enjoyment of travel, there was a certain relief of being in Denver for a whole month, but that didn't last. Eric's heading to the UK for three weeks followed by a holiday with me somewhere TBD, followed by Rome with friends. The UK trip was unplanned, so that chops off the last two weeks of September. My biggest excitement? Getting a whole week alone with Eric with no work for either of us after the UK. Rome will be fun with the others, but I have to strain to think of the last private holiday with Eric, which seems a little unbalanced. We are at some disagreement as to where to go, but I don't think either of us cares that much in the end as long as it happens :)

Meanwhile, my lungs have reminded me that I am indeed back up in thin air as unpacking the car into the 3rd floor flat required several rests. We'll see if I adjust faster this time!

That's the end of my saga for the moment. No major epiphanies or discoveries - just living.