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Thursday Thirteen -- Things to Do Over Spring Break
For the first Spring Break in years, I'm not going anywhere. Last year I spent two weeks in Maine learning to build a house; before that, I went up to Madison, WI to visit friends, and for four years before that, I spent these breaks traveling in Europe. With no course to take or train schedules to follow, I have to structure my time for myself. Of course, some of that time is intentionally left unstructured or at least minimally structured. Still, I can plan to do some things and I can look back over the past several days to say "oh yeah, so that's what I did..."
1. Read, read, read. Just for fun, nothing serious or useful to my teaching. So far it's been Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and two novels of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.
2. Play with the dog. Most days, she's couped up in the kitchen for the entirety of the work day, so when I'm home all day she wants a bit more attention. Sometimes, she's content to just snuggle up with me while I read or whatever, but mostly she wants my attention. She gets that attention by dropping things to be thrown in front of me or, when that fails, dropping things on me. Yesterday's weather wasn't conducive, but I'm also taking her on longer walks now that the weather's nicer and I don't feel so crunched for time.
3. Piddle around with music for next year. It's way early, but I've spent some time either working on arrangements or looking for music for when I'm a choral conductor again next year. I've also been trying to dust off the minimal piano skills I had.
4. Singing: the choir I'm in will be performing tomorrow as part of a Good Friday service. We're doing some absolutely beautiful music. I'll have to sit through a church service to do it, but such are the sacrifices we make for Art.
5. Taxes haven't happened yet. I'm waiting on some information about some stock I own. It's not enough to actually earn squat in dividends or to be worth much if I sold it--just enough that I have to report it on my taxes.
6. Reading and prepping for classes also hasn't happened yet. I've been giving it thought in odd moments, but haven't done much actual work in this direction. I'd like to get the better part of the next two months planned out, since we don't have another break in that time. Oh, I've also got two sections of essays to grade.
7. Watching movies. I'm not doing a lot of this, but when we were setting up our Netflix queue (we just joined a week or two ago) there were some movies that I wanted to see that Lauren wasn't too interested in, so I'm getting those watched. I saw Mirrormask the other day, and it was decent. Pretty good performances, fine story, with a hint of Terry Gilliam-esque surrealism (the story and screenplay were written by Neil Gaiman). I'm waiting for the recent Beowulf to arrive through the slot in my door.
8. Getting back on track with my exercise program. I barely hit the gym at all in the past several weeks, and before that I had drifted off into a less focused plan, so I want to take some time here to get back on the plan that was working for me back in the fall--I'd really felt like I was slimming down and getting stronger, but then I got sick and then my ankles expressed some dissatisfaction with my regimen. I'm hoping new shoes take care of the latter problem. Yesterday was my first day back out and I'm feeling it today, but I'll head for the gym later this morning.
9. Day trip. I'd like to take a trip up to one of the literary historical sites over break here, but I'll need to do it soon if it's going to happen, since Lauren will be taking the car to work next week. New England is just chock-full of them. Our school is heading up to visit Concord and Walden pond later this spring, so I was thinking perhaps Emily Dickinson's home. My juniors will be reading her poetry after break.
10. Compose. While I diddling around with music anyway, I might as well try to write something, though I haven't yet.
11. Play games. I hadn't played Euchre on Yahoo! Games in probably close to a year, but I've been playing my fair share the past couple days. Also some time on BrettSpielWelt, the German site I've mentioned before, and just a smidgeon of time colonizing the new world.
12. Reconnect with friends. Some e-mail, some IM, some contact through Facebook.
13. Watch basketball starting later today.