Lunch, etc

Today I stopped in at a little park in time to see a rather gruesome drama involving a mynah (I think) and its overly large lunch, which was still alive.



I think it was a cicada. It's strange, though. I haven't seen or heard any kumazemi yet. That's what it looks like to me, but perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps it's some other large insect.

We're heading into our final two or three weeks of semester now, and I have been feeling bad about not posting more, especially since I have had some entertaining classes this semester. But that swine flu week off messed things up a bit. I had a lovely week off at the time, doing almost nothing, but since then it has all been madness. What has made things especially mental is that instead of making up the classes, we were permitted to give our students an extra homework assignment. I did this (as did every other teacher I know) but all those homework assignments have come in at once. This is mostly due to my own bad planning, but partly due to students to whom I had given an earlier deadline not handing in their homework on time. I have also been giving end-of-semester tests, so marking tests and grading assignments has kept me pretty much without the time or energy to write.

It is possible that my schedule this year has made it a bit harder to write, too. Last year I had a hideous schedule, but several times a week I could stay up late without causing meltdown the next day. That's when I wrote my blog. This year, however, I have to get up at five o'clock three days a week. This has not been too bad, I must say, but mostly because I have managed to change my routine so that I am usually in bed by ten at the latest. So I have been doing very well in terms of having energy for work, but blogging has suffered.

Also, my Palm (with portable keyboard) died. I now have an iPod Touch, but with no external keyboard I do not like typing on it for anything longer than short memos. It is too slow.

Why can't the iPod have an external keyboard? That would make it PERFECT.