Today was a wonderful day! I discovered that we're getting the Aiptek DV 4500 cameras for use in the writing program; I get to work on buying those next week.

And I went to a meeting about computer classrooms where it really seemed that the administration wants to come up with room configurations that will work for our program, and they're happy to listen to us. What a treat! There seems to be really good communication between faculty and administration here.

Then I went to a tech fair in the Center for Teaching Excellence, where I [a] signed up to win a flash drive, [b] learned that flash drives have been designed to look like sushi and ducks (why don't I have one yet?), and [c] talked to the division's instructional designer about where we can store the video from those cameras . . . (she was much amused at hearing that the UM Modern Language department had slowed the courseware to a crawl by uploading massive amounts of audio to their course spaces when they first had the capability). It was nice to connect with her; I've been meaning to talk to her for a while. And it was nice to hear that she thinks it will be no problem to figure out a process for dealing with the video. I don't have much time to get that together . . .

To cap it all off, Em spent the day with me today. She and her boyfriend broke up yesterday, so she was feeling like licking her wounds . . . She's been wanting to come to watch me teach, so rather than leave her home alone or force her to go to school, this seemed like a good compromise. I had a very busy day grading papers, which turned out perfectly; she curled up in the comfy chair in my office and read a book all day, which was exactly what she needed to do. We had a pleasant ride home (we drove past the Capitol, which she couldn't remember ever seeing) and then just drove home watching the incredible salmon-and-deep-blue sunset. She didn't have much to say about the breakup, and I don't know the terms. I didn't give advice but I did get to tell her a few of the things I really love about her father, and she seemed to really want to listen. It was a very pleasant conversation.

So things are looking up around here . . .