The Semester of Twos

I haven't posted a blog since April. In the academic calendar, that isn't a long time, just a semester ago, but as I look over my last post, I realize just how long ago that was. I was so excited that Charity was stringing two words together. Now, she's speaking in full sentences and we have the most accurate conversations. What I mean by that is when I ask her something, she responds to me, and vice versa. I love watching her grow and change. Today when I went to get her up from her nap, which was 4 hours long, she looked like such a big girl with her hair down and her pjs on. There's a toddler bed in her room right now; we're going to transition her to it soon. Yet sometimes, she still looks so much like a baby.

When you've been a student for as long as I have, everything is measured in semesters, and this semester is the semester of twos. Charity is two. So far, the first half of her twoness has been frustrating, if not terrible. :) She's beginning to "shape up," now though, to use a cliche. I think she's just getting more used to her newfound ability to be. It must be difficult to be two and to suddenly realize that you can do things like refuse or disagree, express your opinion, analyze and verbalize. I try to imagine her tough moments as tryouts rather than tantrums. She's simply trying out that emotion or mode of expression. Once she gets that others really don't respond well to it, she'll stop. It's classic conditioning.

Another two this semester is the number of classes I'm taking. I actually type these words in a computer lab on campus. Charity is spending the night at my grandma's today, so I don't feel rushed to get home. I'm enjoying the silence for a few moments. Today was the first day of my first 600 level class, a class on computers and rhetoric. To tell you the truth, I was thinking about dropping it. I wasn't sure I wanted to take two classes this semester in addition to everything else I'm doing. But I think I'm really going to like this class, and the end of my MA is in sight for me, so I'm going to stick it out. The boy I drive to school says I shouldn't be missing church on Wednesdays, though. Well, I guess I'll have to see if the professor will move class. :)

I wish the number of classes I am teaching this semester would be two. Instead it's three, just downsized from a four. I'm teaching ENG 104--not 100 as it would turn out--in a learning community. The curriculum is completely new, and while this is going to be challenging for me, I'm excited. It is a refreshing change. I'm also teaching my private ESL classes, with students whom I adore, and a class at Portage Christian, which has been wonderful so far. However, doing this, in addition to tutoring at PUC's Academic Learning Center, writing online, and working at SADC will be challenging. I plan to face the challenge, and to get a 4.0, be a great teacher, and still have plenty of time to count the coins in the piggy bank with Charity.

Going along with the theme of twos--no one better ever accuse me of not knowing how to follow a vehicle--this is probably the second most important semester of my graduate career because of the fact that it is one of my last. I'm overloaded, but because it is ending. And I go on to bigger and better things. I have an idea of what those are, but prefer not to have it in writing as of yet. For now, I'll leave you with an image of two--Charity's two-year-old birthday cake she got for her birthday in August! Little girl is growing up!