Five recent sources of joy

Another slow-brain night. Originally, I had planned on writing about Battlestar Galactica, particularly my love for Starbuck. But the press of work and other distractions prevent me from doing justice to the topic--yes, I want to devote to it the same sort of diligence I give my more serious topics.

Instead, I treat you to some of the little moments that have given me joy recently:

1) My son has been pretending to be a puppy. It started last night after his bath; we still use some of those character baby towels, and he ended up in the blue puppy one last night. As a puppy, he gave lots of high-pitched barks and the best puppy hugs.

2) At the end of my office hour the other day, one of my students showed up. He was actually looking for another of his teachers, but decided to ask me some questions. This particular student can be difficult to deal with; he assumes he is right about everything, but seems to have very weak study skills. I was giving him suggestions about how to work on the memorization aspect of our course. My experience teaching younger students came in handy. Afterwards, his other teacher and another colleague complimented me and told me that it had been really helpful for them to hear both my study suggestions and how I dealt with a difficult student.

3) We live near train tracks and were able to time a walk perfectly with part of rush hour. On our way home, our son had a chance to watch 5 different trains go by. He was ecstatic.

4) After a couple weeks of allergy-induced coughing, we were prescribed an inhaler and mask for our son. We've been repeatedly told either that he's too young to have seasonal allergies (how do they figure?) or that he's too young to diagnose them (and therefore we can't treat them?). Relief for him means fewer days out of preschool and more peaceful nights. I'm always excited about more sleep!

5) Although I still haven't found my groove for the semester in terms of my course work, I've been able to get some things lined up for the future, including a good talk with the supervisor of my likely minor field. So the big picture is really coming together. Which always alleviates stress.

Off to read many pages for my class tomorrow.