Blogging Finals Week: Friday

Friday was holy-crap-I'm-so-busy day. This was our last day of dumpster diving the college student apartments, and it was raining. Not a drizzle, a proper rain like they had nearly every summer afternoon while I was in Oxford. We didn't manage to go everywhere we wanted, but we did manage to find a pair of flowery sorority-girl galoshes (why would you throw these away on the one day it was raining?), a third of a pack of CDRs, and some soggy hangers. Not that great a haul, but add to it the toaster oven, coffee table, baby booster chair (with tray!), and wooden bookshelf, and it was pretty good overall.

We made it home for lunch, and then went to the Graduate College reception at the new National Weather Center south of campus. I was happy to go, because I was one of two recipients for this year's Provost's Graduate Assistant Teaching Award. Aside from the fact that they gave me money for having done my job, I suspect I'll be very glad to have it on my CV when I apply for teaching positions next fall. They were really welcoming to my family, including a nursing 1 year old. I'm not a big fan of events that exist solely to congratulate people, but this one was pretty good (not to mention short).

After that, we came home for a bit before going to help a friend--and another friend--move out of their apartment. My wife is an organizer and go-getter from way back, so while I held the baby (who was teething and running a temperature all day), Jessie helped them organize, clean out, package up, and dispose of their remaining gear. We took some of their unwanted stuff home for the garage sale, including a bunch of napkins and a blender pitcher (without lid or blender). Which would have been fine, except when I was getting the baby out of the car when we got home I cut my finger on the blade of one of those items. And it wasn't the napkins.

Anyway, once the bleeding stopped and I was bandaged up, we settled in to the evening. I put the baby to sleep around 7:30 or so, then came out to help some other friends unload stuff for the garage sale (it's seriously gonna be big, folks). In a little less than an hour, I'm going to go hang for a bit with yet one more friend who just graduated with his PhD in Social Psychology. That is, if Lucy sleeps well (teething babies have hard lives).

Tomorrow I plan to finish my grading, make some progress on a paper I am trying to get published, and help more people fill my garage with their unwanted leavings (which will be totally rad and you should come next week and buy them all!!!).

So, all told, finals week still manages to be a very busy time.