I miss blogging. For the past two years, it feels as if my head has been locked inside a cloud of busyness, and I've not had time to collect my thoughts or to stay in contact with friends and family members whom I love. Human interactions have been fleeting, but the ones we have managed to squeeze into our overstuffed lives have been worthwhile.
More than a year after our last post, I. and I have seemingly done very little, but my catalogue (and the sparse photographs I've eked out) are fuller than I remembered. Here's a brief recap:
Probably the most exciting event in our lives is I.'s schooling. He has successfully completed his fourth semester of nursing school (a week ago), and has two classes and two practicums to complete before his anticipated graduation in December. For the first time in what seems like years, we are starting to think about the future rather than the present. I. is hoping to complete a one-year nursing residency program somewhere after he graduates. At the moment, we're looking at hospitals both in our current town, hundreds of miles away, and even thousands of miles away. Nursing is in demand at the moment, but our eventual destination will probably depend on the location that hires him.
I'm still teaching at the same school, but have negotiated more administrative duties in exchange for fewer preps this year. We've just completed construction on one new wing, will be finishing a second wing as soon as the humidity in the floor drops below a certain percentage, and are apparently about halfway through the construction of our gymnasium, cafeteria, theatre, and library.
I've temporarily paused one of my jobs (early-morning tutoring) because I am dabbling in other teaching arenas at the moment. I've spent the summer teaching Latin online (which has been great fun) and (on Tuesday) will begin work as a composition teacher for one of the local community colleges. I'm scheduled to teach an evening class at the campus that is geographically closest to us (though it's still about an hour commute home afterwards). Being offered this position was one of the greatest moments of my summer, and I still am struggling to believe that I'll be back in a college classroom in only a few more days! I'm also scheduled to co-teach an online Shakespeare class with a colleague from graduate school in the spring. I think my colleague and I are both looking forward to it immensely.
I've almost entirely avoided cameras for the past year, but here are a few moments I did manage to capture digitally:
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| I. on a short walk around the lake in Cookeville, TN (July 2015) |
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| Life-size chess pieces (Atlanta, Georgia; late 2015). |
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| First view of Olympic Park (still Atlanta). |
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| Turner Field (still Atlanta) from the top of a super-ritzy hotel. |
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| SNOW DAY!!! We took a walk to our local library, but they weren't open. |
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| Helen, GA. We spent a long weekend there for our anniversary this March. |
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| Stream below one of the waterfalls near Helen. |
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| Snake in Helen! |
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| Another waterfall . . . another hike (still near Helen). |
Maybe I'll manage another post before next summer.
