first of all, go check out my new Cabinet, as part of the 87 Cabinets project. I wanted to get my cabinet built before I start teaching next week, because I was afraid I'd forget about it and have the Cabinet Cop yellin' at me. And that would be no good.

I've got 2 of my 3 courses plotted out now! I'm really starting to get into the groove of the classes, and I'm getting pretty excited. I still get pangs of stress, like when I wake up for some reason, worrying about always being "on" in front of class, but as Elizabeth says, I'll be constantly challenged as a teacher and I won't have any opportunity to slack.

Plus I've planned out fun stuff to do every Friday, whether it's hitting the computer lab or playing Grammar Jeopardy or hosting Run-On/Fragment Friday. It will be non-stop learning in Ol' Mike Jasper's classroom.

And did I mention the three weeks off at Christmas???

I'm feeling fairly caught up at last, and as I was hauling wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load of mulch onto our various flower beds this afternoon, I starting thinking of -- gasp! -- the Wannoshay novel.

I'm stuck on a crucial point in the novel, I realized. It's where all of my main characters finally meet -- Father Joshua from "Crossing the Camp," Shontera from "Explosions" (okay, her name was Terri in that version), Skin from "Mud and Salt," and Ally from "Wantaviewer," along with Shermie (CEO and president of Macy, Nebraska) and Toshera (Shontera's daughter). This is a Big Deal. I don't want to blow it. I already got to do extremely fun scenes when Shontera and Toshera met Father Joshua, as well as when Ally meets Skin and Shermie, so now I have to get the two groups together.

It's a pivotal scene, as they all meet at the Wannoshay mother ship carrying information from the alien camps and labor farms, and I've been shrinking away from it. But the more I think about it, the closer I get to figuring out how it can work.

So maybe I'll be able to get some wordage done on this Novel Dare I started after all! Later...

Now Playing:
"Breathe," Midnight Oil

Now Reading:
Year's Best SF vol. 20

Today's Quote:
The bastard was dawdling again. He called it exploring. Adventuring.

Last time this happened, he'd ended up in the uptown market of a city three countries to the south, selling beads and petrified beetles, having been adopted by a family of albino gypsies who all wore black hoods and oversized sunglasses and never moved anywhere anymore.