Heptadecagon

Tuesday, August 29, 2016. 8:06 a.m. EST. Me: Okay, class, it's time for your quiz. Close your books, put your notes away. (Shuffling of textbooks and lab manuals and squeaking of chairs can be heard.) Me: This quiz has six questions, which you will see up here on the screen. Please write your answer on the paper I just handed you. Student 1: Is there going to be a word bank? Me: (Insert eye rolling here.) Uh, not for this quiz. It's pretty simple, and I won't take off for spelling. You'll do fine. (A collective sigh of relief reverberates across the lab benches.) Me: Question 1: Name the three formed elements* we discussed in class last week. Student 2: Can you tell me what you mean by formed element ? Me: No, I cannot. (Takes deep breath, tries not to lose it. Does the mental math and realizes 89 more classes to go. Smiles.) Student: Ok. *Formed element refers to red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, some of which are shown below.

OMG, we haven't had a Tuesday Kitty Cuteness since back in April . Seriously. And since I have very few moments to write, but apparently plenty of time to snap pictures, I thought I'd make your day. If you like cats, that is. These two, Benedict and Arnold, certainly cause their share of mischief, but poses like these help bring my blood pressure back down after a long day of teaching. (As of this morning, friends, I'll only have 90 chances left to break those students!) But really. Who can deny all of this kitty cuteness? Arnold. Asleep for a change. Which means he's NOT in the dog's water dish performing water aerobics. Benedict. In a box. Which means he's NOT batting around a whiffle ball in his attempt to look like Gareth Bale.

When I was a child, I had a favorite dessert recipe. I loved it so much, I offered a copy of it to my teacher the year we made a class cookbook for Mother's Day. The recipe? We called it Lemon Fluff, but Mom never made the dish with lemon pudding. Instead, she usually used chocolate or pistachio flavored puddings. Mom and Dad visited last week and for Dad's birthday, I thought I'd pull out that old recipe. I couldn't actually find the cookbook, but I found the right recipe on the good old internet, of course. The recipe doesn't take much time, and based on the oohs and ahhs from my parents, it had been a long time since they'd tasted the dessert. It was so good to see my Mom enjoy something sweet. Ingredients: 2 cups flour 1 cup butter dash of white sugar 2 cups powdered sugar 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese (light or regular), softened 2 (3 1/2 ounce) packages instant chocolate (or lemon or pistachio) pudding 3 cups milk 1-2 (8 ounce) cont

181. Black cotton hoodies. 182. Fresh squeezed orange juice. 183. Ice cold pistachio-almond ice cream on a humid August day. 184. The sound a computer mouse makes when your fingers click the button. 185. A quick hug from my favorite red headed child. 186. Melina's small fingers when they grasp mine. 187. New mattresses. 188. Having a day off. 189. Learning something new. 190. Foot massages.

Talia walked into my bedroom with tears running down her face. "Is it normal to be so emotionally attached to a fictional character that you care about what happens to them?" After having just finished an episode of Sherlock , she'd woken me up. I don't know why she felt the need to risk my wrath by waking me up. Maybe she was worried about herself. Maybe she just felt like coming to see me. Maybe she needed comfort; most people don't like crying alone. Or maybe, based on her question, she wanted validation that she was normal. But I can't say that she is. I can say that she inherited this particular abnormality from me. Her reaction to Sherlock is the same one I get when I read a particularly well-written and engrossing novel. The books that I'll pick up a second time, the ones that I bawl my eyes out over and want to know what happens to the characters. Talia's reaction is what I hope to cause in someone else each time I finish a story and

Every August, I print out my class lists, copy my class expectations, and throw paper into my binders. I post information online and clean out my bag. Make sure I have room keys and Scantron forms and pencils and dry erase markers. Every August, I find myself a teeny bit excited to be back in the classroom. Sometimes, that excitement carries me through the entire semester. This year, the excitement lasted until yesterday morning at 10:07 a.m. Which, as many of you know, was the SECOND day of classes. I can't pinpoint why that moment my house of cards came crashing down, but considering all of my courses (five total this semester) haven't even met for the first time yet, I'm worried. Yesterday afternoon, I actually caught myself counting down the days until December. (As an aside, do you want to know how many more "classes" I have to teach? I'll tell you. That number stands right now at 93. Yes, I have to dispense information 93 more times before the end of

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole . ~Roger Caras I remember the sunny summer day in 2007 that the five of us--this was in the pre-Melina days--visited my folks in Michigan. We hadn't been in the house long when my dad said, "Do you know anyone who wants a dog?" Anyone? Anyone? How about me? "Uh, yeah. I want a dog. What kind is it?" "A Golden Retriever." It didn't take but a few phone calls for us to schedule a visit to meet this Golden Retriever. His owners sought a home for him because he stayed alone for over 12 hours a day. "It's not fair to the dog," they said. "We'd love to find him a great place to stay. His name is Shadow." We rolled up the driveway in our minivan, three excited kids strapped into their car seats. As we all got out of the car, I felt a fleeting moment of uncertainty: what I hoped to find and what I might find could very well be two different things. But

I love the saying, "Not my circus, not my monkeys." It's supposedly translated from Polish and basically means--if you can't figure it out yourself--that whatever you're talking about isn't your problem and there's no need for you to be dragged under the muck that is the problem. But sometimes, it is your circus and they are your monkeys, and let me tell you, my friends, when you realize that you're living that life, there's not much you can do but laugh. And try to shovel out of the deep layers of excrement you have piled around you. Wise words for a Friday, I know.

At the beginning of the summer, I decided that one of my writing goals would involve my current WIP, After We've Fallen . Although I'd received feedback from my writing group back in April, I hadn't done anything with that feedback except think about it. Knowing my writing time would be very limited, I said to myself, "Revise the bad boy and be done with it by the end of summer." But in order to revise, I had to go see a priest. If you keep up with this blog, you'll know that I didn't bother to see the priest until mid-July. (Okay, it wasn't that I didn't bother, it's that I was busy. You know how that goes). What had I done between the start of summer (May 23rd or so) and mid-July? I'd gone through each marked-up copy (I had six of them) and made the tiny corrections suggested by my writing group. All the little things had been marked off the list. After seeing the priest, I tackled the larger issues. Sure, I only had about a month to

Last night, I set the alarm for 5:00 a.m. I'm not sure why I bothered. With the first day of school for the kids being today, I knew I'd be up and ready. Not because I'm at the end of my tether and willing to sell my kids to the lowest bidder. No, it's more of a quiet nervousness that exists for at least three of my four kids. The older two head off to high school and the boy starts middle school. Only the youngest is at the same school as last year. And since we already know (and love) her teacher, we don't expect too many surprises. But I found myself asking so many questions this morning that shut-eye remained elusive. And I'm not even the one going to school. I could bore you with those questions, but I won't. Deep down, I know that Zoe and Talia, while nervous, will find their way (literally and figuratively) through the high school. I know that Aaron won't forget his lunch every day nor will he go to one class instead of the one written on hi

When I received my current work-in-progress back from my writing group, I noticed that one of the minor critiques by a writing mate concerned my use of names in dialogue. "It's not natural," she wrote, "to use names that often." So instead of writing, "Sadie, I know how distressing and probably exhausting that admission was for you to say those words," my partner wanted me to simply remove Sadie . It should be clear, if the piece is written well, who is speaking. (I'm not saying that sentence is either profound or exceptionally well-written; I simply use it as an example.) I found multiple other places in the manuscript where names were to be eliminated, too, and in the midst of revising, I started to slash them all. You can find a patch like this here . But as I went about taking out the names, I realized WHY I'd written my manuscript in that manner. I have names in my dialogue because...(drumroll)...that's how I talk around my

Lastly, I've been thinking about what it means to love someone.

And time. Yes, I've been thinking about that, too.

I've also been thinking a lot about dogs as of late...

I've been thinking a lot about hands lately...

Dear Student, Here we are, before the semester even begins , and I'm writing to you. Don't you wonder why? It's partly because I love writing these letters to you (find the other letters by searching this blog for Dear Student ), and partly because I anticipate that I'm going to have a rough semester. You see, I received an email a little while ago explaining that we're in the midst of changing textbooks. Which means that for anyone taking the first semester of the Human Anatomy and Physiology series, a new textbook is needed. For people like you, who are taking the second semester of the series, you can continue to use the textbook you bought for the first course. Great news, right? Wrong. Because in addition to that original email from a colleague, I've already received several emails from students. The gist of those emails goes a little like this: I see we need the 10th edition of the textbook, but I have the 8th edition. Will that be good enou

I can't remember the last time I went so long between blog posts. I feel creaky, achy, as if I'm waking up from a long winter's slumber. My eyes are sore, my fingers clumsy. And my words? Tripping over one another to get out. I've been busy, to say the least, and unable to get in front of the computer. Now, I need to make up for lost time. But this post isn't going to be a marathon of words or an onslaught of opinion. (I could give you both, I think.) It's a gentle reminder to find peace and happiness in the little joys of life: family, friends, art projects, warm blankets, fuzzy slippers, sunny days, flowers, ice cold water or whatever bits-of-life make you content. Good luck.