Serendipities

So many essays to grade, lectures and seminars to prepare, and here are two great carnivals to distract me (and you?) from the work:

Teaching Carnival XVI at Ancarett’s Abode brings together such intriguing questions as how can you juggle all your work and teaching responsibilites? When to stop reading? Why do students hate groupwork? How to use blogs in the classroom? I am most tempted to click for the answer to the question “what makes a successful discussion”? Another question that I, as a non-pseudonymous blogger, am especially intrigued by: “is it ethical to discuss students in blogs?”

And if that isn’t enough to keep you from your work for an hour or so, Axis of Evil Knievel presents History Carnival XLIII. Trust Evil Knievel to challenge your categories of work and distraction: “there are a lot of blogs out there that haven’t been updated in months. To those slackers, I ask: What are you people doing with yourselves? Get back to work already.”

Now, the choice faces you too: back to your own work, or the inspiring writings of others?

Well, I…

• almost bought an apartment in Amsterdam, but discovered a major construction error just before signing the contract
• almost, almost finished my PhD thesis — no major construction errors discovered as yet (fingers crossed)
• corrected a huge number of midterm essays (my first time) and loved it (sorry)
• developed a love-hate relationship with the Dutch railway system
• bought a pair of lovely new black leather boots in between two lectures (I love impulse buys, and working in Amsterdam city centre doesn’t help)
• twice bought lottery tickets in attempt to remedy said impulse buys — did not win a thing
• dropped from somewhere in the top 50 to number 81 on the Blogtopsites list (I don’t even dare to look at my page stats)
• …yet kept receiving comments on older posts, which I will answer this week, promise
• missed you all!