🎶I Want To Ride My Bicycle...🎶

So after a morning trip to the Acme Store (no seriously guys, the store's name is Acme. It's Albertsons out here) for veggies and breakfast necessities (I still didn't find that damned Wile E Coyote aisle), Aaron made his way to the campus to do some work, and I made my way to the MVA (Maryland doesn't have MVD's apparently) to find out that I needed several more documents than I had with me to do the whole license thing.

So I can back, played some video games, and after Aaron came back, we went to the gym. The faculty/staff section is pretty nice, and the cardio equipment all overlooks two different basketball courts. It's kind of neat while running to wach gymnasts doing flippity-flips. And everyone around there is super fit. I feel a bit Hutt-esque at times, but I ran a mile, took a breather, then did another third of a mile before moving on to some leg machines.

After we finished up, we went and retrieved my old Bike that Aaron stuffed into the back of the U-Haul (and I mean *stuffed* in; there were bungee cords and removing pedals and adjusting handlebars to make it fit). We had a local shop replace the tires, tubes, and give it a tune-up (thanks for paying for that, mom! 💖). Friday we are going to bike down to campus together (since I've never actually biked in traffic before) and hit the gym, then come back. After that, as long as the weather holds out, we'll be biking down to campus and back.

I may go to the gaming shop by the campus tomorrow for their casual M:tG evening. I'm hoping that the FNM crowd will not be there so I can maybe meet some players that are able to do adulting in a relatively sane way as well as card-flopping. Cross your fingers.

And, as it is approaching 9, I am going to play some Skyrim and then head off to bed for a bright and early start.

https://elderscrolls.bethesda.net/assets/imgs/backgrounds/Skyrim_1080x964.png

...And So it (the semester) Begins

Today was the first day of the semester.
It went well.

The sky has been falling steadily since about 7AM. I actually got to use one of those fancy Umber-LaLa things that I've heard so much about. ☂ We had to get a new one when we first got out here because it was super rainy on a day we were exploring. It was way overpriced because it was a UD one, but it was also a storm umbrella (big and heavy duty). It's not a bad thing that we got it since the two we had have holes in them. Nothing major; they still work, but holes nonetheless.

All of my classes went well. I love shellshocked freshmen, heh. I got a few laughs out of each class, even though they were reserved and nervous. Seems all freshmen classes are like that regardless of location. First impressions though are good ones for the semester. My office is located in the "Garden Level" (see Basement) of Memorial Hall , pictured below. It's kind of fancy, but the WiFi sucks; I need to get an ethernet converter for my Lappy.

http://sites.udel.edu/econseminar/files/2011/12/cropped-Fountain0738-102411.jpg

I met one of my office mates today. She struck me as really standoffish at first, but once we got talking, she turned out to be super cool. That seems to be the theme for people around here. Once you get through the first awkward encounter, everyone (at least in the English Department so far) is very nice.

There were lots of new names to try to figure out how to spell. I was happy when I hit two of the Spanish names that I am used to.

So far, the chile withdrawals have not yet set in. We have enough dried and some red thanks to Aaron's Grandmother to last for a while, but I am sure we will be jonesing soon enough. We ate lunch at a little pizza/salad place today called "Snap" and it was the cheapest we've seen in that area. It was also super tasty; however, they had a "Super Hot" pizza combo with "hot sauce and poblanos".

Super.
Hot.
Poblanos.

That's cute.

http://amigorealtyllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hatch-green-chile.jpg

English Department Meeting

Today was the first big English meeting at UD.

It was pretty good. I seem to be on par with the overall ideology that I witnessed as far as pedagogy. I met a couple of people in the workshop we did that seemed nice. Hopefully I will meet some more people as the semester starts up.

I volunteered some of my spare time to Dr. Cucciare (the directer of comp and the woman that interviewed me) because I want to both get involved in UD's English Dept and make myself invaluable. This may help in the PhD App process as well, but the main goal is to just force my foot in the door and make sure that it stays there until I can grab a broom, or crowbar, or jaws-of-life to get that door wider, heh.

http://wtip.org/sites/default/files/images/Jaws%20of%20Life.jpg

Christine (Dr. Cucciare) said she would put me in contact with people that may be able to help with getting some more work set up for next semester, so that is a big plus on the monetary front.

Master Bedroom/Bathroom closet has some new holes in it; but on-purpose holes. So that is good.

The dryer/blowers need to go for a few days. They will pick them up on Wednesday.

So other than the whole not-getting-paid-for-another-over-two-weeks aspect, things are looking up. I am very much looking forward to getting back to teaching. The world feels much easier to handle inside of an English classroom (and that's how I know I'm in the right profession).

Sunday, boring Sunday

Aaron and I went for a jog around the campus. We will work out more and lose weight! The campus is simply crawling with Freshmen. The aforementioned "move in day" is the whole weekend. It felt kind of weird running around in my jogging shorts and old T-Shirt past students that may be in my classes come Tuesday, heh.

Yesterday I poked at the Maryland ACA sign up page. Turns out I need a MD License before I can get much past step 2. We plan on hitting the MVD Wednesday. I am sure that will be so much fun.

Yesterday we had a super boring evening. We need friends in the area, and we are hoping we make a few at the campus fairly quickly. We are going to check out the local gaming store's Casual MTG Thursdays (I thought it was Fridays before the FNM crowd, but was off by a day; luckily I checked the website before heading down). Maybe we will meet a few people there. I am still looking forward to the new L5R hitting stores. Egan Ulbricht and I will figure out how to Skype that $#@!. Ultimately Aaron and I wound up playing some Sins of a Solar Empire with the Armada 3 Mod, which is either super fun, or super infuriating. It was pretty fun last night.

I have a big Englishy meeting tomorrow that runs 8:30--3:30 and Aaron is going to Dover with his adviser for some policy thing happening relating to the offshore wind program that his fellowship is related to, and then we jump into the semester. Sadly, from what I have heard, our first paycheck will be Sept 15th instead of the end of this month. I'm glad I had a chunk saved before the move.

P.S. I found the pen I thought I had lost yet again. Dan Chadborn knows the one of which I speak. This thing is like Sokka's Boomerang!

http://68.media.tumblr.com/90151837e285a0dacf41c8e0050dfee7/tumblr_inline_mu67tnAvB11r6oqyh.jpg

ADENDUM: Those who are on FB have already seen my post about the leak. We are not pleased. Aaron is much better at talking with people pleasantly when irritated like this, so we'll let him do the talking tomorrow when we go to have a sit down with the property manager. I'm thinking we should get something comped for the trouble we've had so far, but we'll see.

First Post

Greetings and Salutations!

Well, you found my little corner of the interwebs. Probably because you already know me and wandered here from the facebook.

I will endeavor to post daily here about whatever is going on out here. I may get distracted (random squirrel--of which they have many out here and some of them are really fat!--or shiny object) and miss a day or two, but poke me and I'll get on the posting.

Aaron and I have been checking out the many and small state parks around us in search of running/biking trails. We hit up one called Rittenhouse Park, and it was pretty. The bugs were almost loud enough to block out the sounds of vehicles. There are a ton of little parks like this all over. It's strange being so close to the traffic of the surrounding city, though.

Other than some basic exploring, we are gearing up for the start of the semester. I just got my classes all published online through the course management software I am using out here called Canvas. At least, I think and hope I got them all published and ready to go. We will go with "yes" and I will double check on Monday when I go in for our long meeting.

Apparently today is "Freshman Move-In Day" so we are keeping clear of the campus area. Sticking close to home and putsing around. I hear Aaron playing some Battlefront, so I will probably go join him shortly in resisting the Empire (or killing Rebel Scum, depends on which team I get put on).

:-D