Busy: Cooking, Teaching, Writing, Presenting, Helping

Yeah, I've been crazy busy.

Last weekend (Saturday night & Sunday) I cooked TONS of food and drove to U#2 with all that food to perform my "semesterly" ritual of feeding my students Brazilian food. It was tiresome as usual and with some drawbacks such as much lower turnout of students than in previous semesters and uncomfortable feelings because I was busy cooking and cleaning while my colleague was having a good time and talking to the students. I think this is all I'm going to say about that... sigh!

It was lovely to go to my friends' new house for the first time and sleep there, I wish I hadn't gotten there so early, but it was for a good cause (little home improvement project, I'll share at another time! :-)

Then, there was the regular teaching, with a departmental conference added in for "good measure" (ha ha ;-).  Old-timers here will know that I just love conferences, though, and I've been organizing a panel with students every year  for this particular one (except last Spring because I didn't have many students at U#1). This year's panel was just fantastic! I had a former student (who's finishing his master's and will go on to Duke to do his phd in Brazilian history!!) and three current students who spoke about various fascinating topics related to Brazil (don't want to share or else you can google and possibly find me ;-).

I wrote my paper on the fly, downloading (through Google reader for the first time ever) 15 articles on Wednesday night then writing the paper all day on Thursday, including during this poetry panel I participated in at the conference. ;-) I was done for our panel, though, and the paper came together pretty nicely in the end! Phew!

OK, now on to helping, my favorite activity, something nearly innate in me, a trait I "inherited" from my parents and took to even greater lengths (particularly in the cooking department). I spent quite a bit of time this past month helping organize these friends' wedding shower and it'll be tomorrow afternoon. Last night I started making them a banner that looks a bit like this (slightly different colors -- added yellow) and I just finished now! I am responsible for the drinks and I'll make Brazilian passion fruit mousse, but I mostly have to help the bride's mother to decorate the venue.

When it rains, it pours, so tonight we have another shower, a baby shower this time, involving some of the same friends, but I 'm not helping with this one. I'm just really upset that the book I ordered wasn't delivered on time because for whatever strange reason, Amazon isn't selling it (it's Dr. Sears' Baby Book) and I had to order from someone else that didn't offer prime. I paid double for express shipping, but it didn't work out. :(

OK, gotta go pack that present and find out whether I have a ride for tonight or whether I have to drive there by myself!