A Family Affair

We had a whirlwind weekend with lots of family in town. On Friday Brendan's mom, aunt, and uncle drove to Abilene for a long weekend. Brendan's cousin Victor just graduated with his Ph.D and was hired to work at ACU in the fall, so we threw a party for him on Friday night. The rest of the weekend was filled with shopping, a trip to Chuck. E. Cheese (wow, I had forgotten how bad their pizza is), lots and lots of food, and copious amounts of the Olympics. We got to show off our little duplex, too, so that was nice. They left on Tuesday morning; I do love seeing family, but it was an exhausting weekend. Victor and his wife and kids are wonderful, so it will be nice to have some family in town.

School starts a week from Monday, and I think I'm ready. It's weird to think that I'm about to start my last year as a student (minus that Ph.D I've been thinking about), and my last year at ACU. I'm so ready to finish, so ready not to have 20-page papers due, but I will miss this place. All the second-year English grad students (woah... I'm a second-year grad student...) have formed this tight-knit group of wonderful, slightly-nerdy people trying to wade through grad school together. We've been through a lot and shared some wonderful experiences, and I'll be sad to leave them.

Today is my last day at work, which is a little sad. I really enjoyed working at the Camps office this summer; it was the perfect summer job, and I worked with some great people. I'm using next week to prepare for classes and to plan my English 111 class. That's right, I'm teaching a college class in the fall; all the second-year grad students are encouraged to teach a freshman Composition class. Why did I sign up to do this? I want to be a teacher more than anything, but I admit I'm pretty terrified. This is college, people! I go through periods where I'm really excited about my class, but then I'll get nervous. Oh, well. Student teaching equipped me with valuable experience, and the seniors I taught during student teaching are pretty much at the same cognitive level as my new freshmen. We'll see how the semester goes.