Friday Fragments: Positive Student Evaluations and Poem Creating

Yesterday was much easier than Thursday--but that's not a surprise.  Yesterday we only had one meeting, so my committed time was only one hour.  Thursday was very scheduled, from 8 a.m. until 3.  Let me capture yesterday:

--Here's the one cool thing that stands out.  We had our Humanities division meeting, and we entered the classroom door that had colored pieces of 8 x 11 paper posted around the door frame.  On each piece of paper was a different student evaluation with a positive statement about teaching.  Our dean told us that she chose a positive evaluation for each one of us and put the comment on the paper.  She wanted us to remember that the work we do is important.  What a great way to start a meeting!

--The meeting was a good one, full of good brainstorming about ways to keep students from leaving us.  We'd like to grow our bachelor degree programs, and we'd like to keep 1st year students from dropping out.  Unlike some administrator meetings I've attended in pre-pandemic days, there was no administrator blame in the discussion of retention.  Refreshing!

--Yesterday morning I was going back through old blog posts trying to remember the pre-first day of class schedules of past years.  I came across this blog post that reminded me of eating ice cream with my parents a year ago and this post about aging bodies and this post about watching the news with my dad a year ago, and a first line for a poem came to me, and I followed it.

--It's not the first time, and it won't be the last time that I've been grateful for my blogging practice.

--This morning, before Saturday sermon writing, I'm trying to finish the rough draft of the poem.  It revolves around three T.V. shows:  Back to the Frontier, a nightly news show, and Little House on the Prairie.  It involves ice cream and habits and the way we may never escape our younger selves in our family constellation.  This bit may be my favorite:

We return to earlier incarnations
of our relationship. My mom
counts the calories in the bowl
and comments on how much thinner
we would be if we dumped
the ice cream down the drain.
Because I am now a grown up,
I resist the temptation
to eat the whole carton.

--I have been making lots of progress on quilting projects.  I've been sewing in the evenings, as we've watched TV--it's a delightful way to end the day.