I really couldn't concentrate on much of anything yesterday. All I managed to do was a few paintings (I'm trying to put together something decent for the WisCon art show) and getting plants and fish for our new aquarium. We thought Kavi would like the new 56-gallon tank, and she does. They say to only fill it a third-full of fish initially, so that's what we did -- we've got ten little schooling danios and two larger fish whose name I'm forgotten. The danios are super-cute, in bright red and gold, swimming very fast. Hopefully we'll manage to keep these fish alive, unlike the last batch. Kavi comes up to the tank, puts her hands on the glass, and laughs out loud. Also very cute.
Other than that, spent the day relaxing, catching up on Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who -- it's been so busy the last few weeks that we'd gotten very behind on tv -- just no time to watch it. Things should be calming down a bit soon; Kevin's done with classes now, so once his students take their final exam and he grades them this coming weekend, he's done, and can help more with Kavi. I still have five more weeks, since NW is on the quarter system; while I envy Kevin a little for being so close to vacation, I'm loving the teaching so much this quarter that I'm not anywhere near ready for it to end. Did I mention lately, I love my job! Writing and teaching, teaching and writing. It's the best gig ever. (Had dinner Friday night with Nilofer, Shruthi and Venu, and at one point, Venu mentioned that she hated teaching, and I was just bewildered. How can you hate teaching??? But she went on to explain and it sounds like it was more the material for that particular class that was the problem...)
Today, gardening hopefully (it was too cold and wet yesterday, so we shelved that plan), plus course prep (in a cafe, while Kevin watches Kavi). I'm a little behind -- not in what I need to do to teach well, but what I want to do to teach super-well. :-) Specifically, I'd like to go through some of the history and crit that I read in preparation for this course and pull out some specific material to refer to during class. I know the fiction and background well enough that I can lead a good class without doing that, but I really prefer to ground the literature in the history of the times whenever possible, especially with a class like this one, when you have to think that many of these Asian-American writers were not just politically influenced, but politically motivated in their writing. I know I am, and while I hesitate to guess author intent, there's still a lot you can do without ever going there...