One Great Flood = One Great Motivator

Where to start? I could talk about the yummy tuna-noodle casserole that's baking in my oven, or I could talk about the yummy rice-crispie squares Miles and I just polished off. Or I could talk about yesterday's "Great Flood."

Yesterday was my first day back to school. Though Tuesday was officially the start of term, the only class I attend on that day is a first-year lecture, and the 1st years' classes are cancelled on the first day. So I show up to my first seminar, early and eager. On Wednesdays I have two seminars back to back, which may prove to be difficult, as I was completely exhausted from concentrating for four hours. I have one other class to attend on Monday and then I will decide which two to keep and which one to axe. I then had an hour-long break and then attended a small meeting about writing SSHRC applications. SSHRCs are grants, and the applications come with all the bells and whistles you might expect to accompany a grant application. I'm pretty sure that I will post another indepth rant on SSHRC applications in the near future so I'll save the big explanation for then.
The meeting was good, informative, but I had to leave early to pick up Miles from daycare. Picture me running across the campus to get him on time. We wrestle with our usual conundrum "to go to Safeway, or not," decide not, and head home.

We get home, walk in the back door, and Miles says, "Mommy, look!" I look and get very confused: it looks like Mark has shampooed the rug. I say, "Oh wow!" Then I step on it and my foot goes sploosh. Sploosh, sploosh, sploosh, I run to the front door trying to figure out where the water is coming from, then "wait a minute!" Where's Mark? I run upstairs, afraid of I don't know what, and see him, head poking out of a book. I tell him the house is flooded and we both run downstairs, me trying to keep Miles out of the hallway/kitchen and mop up the one-inch-deep water in our house and Mark trying to figure out where the water is coming from. Yep, our water heater burst. And guess what? I knew how to turn it off. (I'm pretty sure I have my mom to thank for that one, though I can't quite place the learning experience.) Then our neighbour whom we have not yet met comes over to ask if everything is okay with us because there's water leaking from our house through to hers.

At this point she saw how we were floundering, and decided we needed her help. We really did.
She brought over a great sponge and started soaking up water. We threw down towels and whole blankets and started wringing them out. What surprised me the most was this woman's generosity of spirit and time. She helped us until we were all cleaned up, and I would guess it took us more than an hour and a half. Then today she was unpacking her boxes, having moved in just last month, and offered to let us have them, because we're moving in a week. So very nice of her.

Today I taught my first discussion group ever! It was fun, a little confused at first, seeing as I started teaching the wrong class, but fun once I got going with the proper class. The mixup happened because an email got lost in the shuffle. I received an email at 2pm that listed a room change for me and another TA, a room change for a class that started at 9:30 this morning. Whoops! Luckily the first class (actually not my class) was willing to hand me back the outlines I had handed out, and the second class (my proper class) forgave me - I hope - for leaving them standing out in the hall for 10 minutes. Everyone found their rightful classrooms and TAs and we were off. My first day went about as well as I could have hoped for. They hated me while I talked about grammar, they liked me when I asked them about their summer, and regardless of how they feel about me, I am their TA. I think it'll be okay. Now if I can pick the first short story we'll discuss, I'll be just fine.

Oh yeah. After the great flood and moving of many boxes outside, we decided to move next week, hired the truck, and started packing. Three boxes down, thousands more to go. By my birthday we should be calling our new place "home."