I am so close to being finished!
Here it is, Monday night, and I've just finished making intelligent and insightful comments on two long essays written by fellow students in my writing class. I have to comment on Teresa's essay yet before tomorrow night. Tomorrow I will be grading portfolios for most of the day, with a break around 1 o'clock for a last brief meeting with my Greening of Religion class. Tomorrow evening is my last writing class--we're having a potluck followed by workshopping. On Wednesday I'm handing back most of my students' portfolios, with a few to be handed back on Thursday morning . . . and then . . . I'm . . . done!! Ilhamdulillah!
Now to find a summer job. I have a couple of very part-time jobs already, but I'm going to need to earn at least a little more this summer. Wish me luck, these next few days and weeks, that I can find something interesting and challenging (but not too challenging) for these summer months.
On Saturday night Jacob and I drove up to his family's farm near Bigfork. It's on the east side of Flathead Lake, a few acres of land covered with 400 cherry trees, all of which are in bloom right now. The room I slept in has a window which overlooks the lake, and it was a lovely way to wake up, Sunday morning, to the sound of rain falling on the roof and mist creeping over the expanse of the lake. The smell of frying bacon wasn't too terrible of a wake-up call, either. Mmm.
It was so good to feel part of a family again. I love my friends in Missoula, but most of them are my age, or are at least at a similar place in life. I'm not close to many middle-aged or older couples--I have found no surrogate parents or grandparents here, and I miss that intergenerational interaction. So spending the day with Jacob and his parents and sister was wonderful. They welcomed me enthusiastically, adopting me with no questions asked. The warmth of their family combined with the beauty of the farm almost brought me to tears--I have missed light-hearted bantering and teasing, have missed my sister, my parents, have missed coming downstairs in the morning to a family breakfast, family prayer, family closeness.
Ilhamdulillah.
The trees are leafing out along my street, and shade falls beneath them during the day and in the twilit spring evenings. It has been a wet spring, and the grass is lush and green, and the smell of cut grass has begun wafting through the air on warm afternoons. The sun scatters light across the valley, and the mountains glow green and gold during the day, are tinted pink and gold as the sun sets, and loom dark against the sky as evening shifts to night.
So, who's going to come visit me this summer?
Here it is, Monday night, and I've just finished making intelligent and insightful comments on two long essays written by fellow students in my writing class. I have to comment on Teresa's essay yet before tomorrow night. Tomorrow I will be grading portfolios for most of the day, with a break around 1 o'clock for a last brief meeting with my Greening of Religion class. Tomorrow evening is my last writing class--we're having a potluck followed by workshopping. On Wednesday I'm handing back most of my students' portfolios, with a few to be handed back on Thursday morning . . . and then . . . I'm . . . done!! Ilhamdulillah!
Now to find a summer job. I have a couple of very part-time jobs already, but I'm going to need to earn at least a little more this summer. Wish me luck, these next few days and weeks, that I can find something interesting and challenging (but not too challenging) for these summer months.
On Saturday night Jacob and I drove up to his family's farm near Bigfork. It's on the east side of Flathead Lake, a few acres of land covered with 400 cherry trees, all of which are in bloom right now. The room I slept in has a window which overlooks the lake, and it was a lovely way to wake up, Sunday morning, to the sound of rain falling on the roof and mist creeping over the expanse of the lake. The smell of frying bacon wasn't too terrible of a wake-up call, either. Mmm.
It was so good to feel part of a family again. I love my friends in Missoula, but most of them are my age, or are at least at a similar place in life. I'm not close to many middle-aged or older couples--I have found no surrogate parents or grandparents here, and I miss that intergenerational interaction. So spending the day with Jacob and his parents and sister was wonderful. They welcomed me enthusiastically, adopting me with no questions asked. The warmth of their family combined with the beauty of the farm almost brought me to tears--I have missed light-hearted bantering and teasing, have missed my sister, my parents, have missed coming downstairs in the morning to a family breakfast, family prayer, family closeness.
Ilhamdulillah.
The trees are leafing out along my street, and shade falls beneath them during the day and in the twilit spring evenings. It has been a wet spring, and the grass is lush and green, and the smell of cut grass has begun wafting through the air on warm afternoons. The sun scatters light across the valley, and the mountains glow green and gold during the day, are tinted pink and gold as the sun sets, and loom dark against the sky as evening shifts to night.
So, who's going to come visit me this summer?
I am, I am!!! Maybe not this summer, but in autumn, anyway! I'm planning on hitching a ride with Wendi and Scott as they drive down, and stop and visit you with them.
ReplyDeleteSo you must be done by now, Al? What's going on with you now? I'm in the midst of an extremely busy, extremely emotional last week in Palestine. Hope to talk to you when I return to MN on the 25th (I'll only be there for a week though before heading up to Alaska).
Much love,
Beth