Con la lengua por fuera

This is how Lizzy looked today after she spent about an hour running in the back yard chasing the plastic doughnut that our wonderful friends, who have been spending this academic year in Exeter, gave her as a present before they left (that was one among a veritable chest of toys that they brought over for her!).

The yellow fuzzy and squeaky toy is Lizzy's favorite and my husband humors her by throwing it endless times across the yard and she chases it at full speeds, looking like a short, stubby, albino gazelle. However, Lizzy doesn't like the fetch game in the sense that she doesn't bring the toy back (that's too submissive for her). Instead, she wants my husband to chase her around the yard so she can prove how fast and smart she is. It is really quite hilarious, and quite the workout for everyone involved.

After a very cold day (it's 45 degrees out there right now), we've had some sunshine this afternoon, and that gave us a chance to enjoy the outside. Tomorrow is supposed to go up to the high 60s, so that'll be much more pleasant and perhaps then I can take Lizzy for a walk on the trails, which we both enjoy so much. As of today, I only have four weeks left to this semester and am really looking forward to May 7 when classes will be finally over for this academic year.

Today, the grandmother of one of my students came to visit my Another America class and, thankfully, the discussion of Like Water for Chocolate and, later, of When I Was Puerto Rican went great. The students were fired up and I tried a new thing for that class, group work, which I think spiced up our lives a little and yielded a good, if not very long, discussion. I love it when 80 minutes go by and it doesn't feel like it was that long.

"It was a great class!" my student's grandmother said after we'd adjourned. "I used to be a teacher and I could identify your pedagogical moves. Now I know why my granddaughter loves this class so much."

High praise, indeed. I sure am glad that my last-minute decision to change our usual routine worked so well, and that she was pleased. Let's hope that next semester, when my entire department visits my classes as part of my pre-tenure review, things go that well, too!