Leaving Work at Work

With only 24 more school days remaining this year (but who is counting, right?), I find myself once again with mounds of work piled on my desk.

Tis the season of research papers. I collected the rough drafts of the papers last Thursday and started them over the weekend. In two hours, I read and commented on 10 papers. Of those 10, only two have some minor plagiarism issues. It seems no matter how hard I try to explain plagiarism, it is so difficult for students to understand the concept of paraphrasing. They want to change one word in the sentence and call it their own words.

Today I graded 10 more papers. Unfortunately, of those, three were majorly plagiarized, so much so that I will have to hand them back and have them redo.

4 hours of work, 20 papers down. Only 30 more to go (for this round). And I am hoping to get them finished by Friday when the next round comes in.

Yet, in the midst of all this grading, I can't help but think how far I have come since my first year of teaching (since last year, even). This is the first time since February that I have brought work home with me. I have been making great effort to do all my work at school, even if it means staying a couple hours after school once or twice a week. Even with the research papers, I have been taking them to a coffee shop to grade. It's not that they go more quickly, but it helps keep me on task so I don't take too many breaks in between reaching my daily quota.

And the biggest benefit of all: I am able to leave my work outside my house. It feels good to come home and be home, not to have work hanging over my head at all hours of the evening.

...Five years later, but hey, it's progress!

Crown Candy: Late Post #1

I put these photos on my blog several weeks ago so that I would remember to blog about this, but lo and behold, weeks later, it is still a "draft" in my "Edit Posts." Tardy or not, here it is.

Crown Candy Kitchen is located in North St. Louis and is an old-fashioned ice cream shop that is quite the St. Louis tradition. If you go, be prepared to shell out some money, not a lot, but enough when all you are getting is a malt. It's pricey, but you are paying for the atmosphere. Still, this isn't a review of the restaurant. It's an account of the evening spent there.

On a whim, Casey and I had a free Friday night, so we decided to grab some shakes. We hadn't been to CCK since October 2007, about a month into our relationship, so we thought it would provide some nostalgia and be a fun outing. We called up Jess and her date, on the off chance they could meet up with us, and, voila,* everything worked out.

The pictures below encompass both our recent evening, as well as pics from our first trip to CCK over two years ago. From all appearances, not much has changed, in either the restaurant or in us! :)

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention our post-malt stroll. There is an organization called Old North St. Louis Restoration whose mission is to (duh!)-- restore old North St. Louis. They are working on the square area catty-cornered to Crown Candy, and it looks like it is going to be really cool when it is finished. We walked up and down the street and looked at several cool buildings. Many of them have yet to be sold, but there was an art gallery, a clothing shop, and maybe another. And all of the buildings look really nice. The target date (aka grand opening) is sometime in July 2011. I hope the funds don't dry up and all works well. It seems like a good strategy to use Crown Candy as a cornerstone. It would be nice to see a poor urban area come alive again.

Jess/CL--Mar. 2011

Casey and I--Mar. 2011 (Jess was holding the camera and the picture wouldn't take, so Casey and I are both drinking through our straws, but have too much in our mouths--hence the funny faces!)

Jess and I--Oct. 2007

Casey and I--Oct. 2007

Casey and I are wired very differently when it comes to planning our social lives. I prefer a more full schedule than he does and we battle it out for common ground (in a good way!). I think we are getting to a good compromise point. Case in point: this particular Friday night, one of several free evenings as of late. On our way to meet Jess and CL, I mentioned off-handedly that it was fun to be able to do something last minute. I figured that, had we planned the evening in advance, there was a good chance we would be meeting up for shakes partially out of obligation, but would be too tired or more in the mood for ice cream and a movie at home. But with the freedom of choice--to make plans or stay home, we could both be excited about going out. Casey is glad I am finally seeing things from his perspective.

*Voila, I am somewhat embarrassed to say, is a word I only recently learned to spell. And so I had to use it in writing at first opportunity.

Road Trip! St. Louis

Each year, Casey and I try to do two weekend get-aways. One in the fall and one in the spring. We haven't really done any major vacations since we got married, but these weekends are really nice 'mini-breaks' from the daily pressures of work, house, and the like. This year, to change it up, we decided to road trip about 10 minutes away from our house---downtown St. Louis.

We booked a hotel room at the Drury Plaza Hotel Downtown at the Arch.

Drury Plaza Hotel Downtown at the Arch

Aside from the beautiful location in downtown St. Louis, Drury comes with many perks--I would highly recommend Drury to anyone looking for a comfortable, pleasant hotel experience. The quality of service was excellent. The room was clean and updated. The food was of higher quality than the average "free" breakfast (they even have happy hour food and drinks in the evening, but we missed it b/c we arrived too late). The hotel lobby was spacious and sharp-looking. It even came with a nice still-life of the Lewis and Clark expedition.


Lewis and Clark (and Casey)

 The hotel itself was great. But more than just the hotel was the getting away from life at home. We started our stay-cation Friday afternoon, when I met Casey at Borders and we spent 2-ish hours reading and perusing books. I read halfway through a YA novel called If I Stay that I had heard about on NPR and sounded interesting. It was good enough to take us back to Borders on Saturday so I could finish it before heading to the hotel. Well, that and we both had 40% off coupons--hard to pass up such a good deal on books!

Saturday we cleaned our house before leaving. It's always nice to come home to a clean house. We took our sweet time, getting up late, cleaning, shopping at Borders, so we didn't arrive at the hotel until later in the evening. But we weren't in a rush. We did, however, decide to book a late dinner so that we could spend some time at the hotel, lounging in the pool and enjoying the luxury of cable tv (more so for Casey than me), before leaving again. We decided on a steakhouse that was conveniently located next door to the hotel.

Unfortunately, upon arriving at our scheduled reservation time, it turns out that "someone" had called to cancel our reservations 15 minutes before. Casey doesn't buy the story, and I am skeptical myself, but long story short, they had already shut down the kitchen because they had no other reservations for the evening. LAME! Instead, we ended up at City Diner for our fancy ;) dinner.

City Diner--All Dolled Up!

It was no steakhouse, for sure, but it was one of the only places we could think of on the fly that would serve food after 11pm. And it gave us an excuse to 1.) extend our retreat into Sunday evening with a second try for steaks and 2.) get dressed up for dinner AGAIN!

Before calling it a night, we decided to make one more stop--Lumiere Place Casino. I had never been before, so we thought that staying at the Drury, just a stone's throw from the casino, was about the most opportune time. Neither of us is a big gambler. Casey likes to talk about how "if he wins the lottery..." he will do x, y, or z; and when I remind him that he has to play the lottery to have a chance at winning, his patent response is, "Well, NOT playing really doesn't significantly decrease my chances of winning!" We spent all of 30 minutes at the casino and each lost our designated $5 of casino money in the slot machines. Easy come, easy go! The whole time, I felt like I was in the movie Oceans 11. It was pretty much exactly how I had always imagined it. Highly unimpressive. If I never step foot in another casino, my life will be no less fulfilled.

Sunday dawned bright and clear (a contrast to the cloudy, windy Saturday), so we decided it would be a perfect day for a hike. We haven't hiked together since our honeymoon in the Smoky Mountains. After a bit of research, we decided on the Rockwood Reservation, to get away from the major highways and hopefully, the crowds, and because there was nothing online that excluded pets, based on the website info. But upon pulling into the parking lot, the first big sign we saw: "NO PETS!" Go figure. I mean, what use could that information be on your website, right?


Trekker doing the proverbial head out the car window


Instead, we ended up at Greenfeldt Park, which backs up to the reservation (and, we later found out, to Six Flags--as we made our way back to 44 via a more direct route, we began to hear the screams from The Screaming Eagle. I had always wondered about all the forest behind the park. Now I know!). We found an appealing trail at Greenfeldt and hiked for almost two hours--a great way to spend a warm spring afternoon. And Trek enjoyed it too, especially after spending the night by himself--poor pup! And, as an added bonus, we worked up a great appetite for our steak dinner--round two.

This time we ended up at Sam's Steakhouse in South County. Thankfully, no glitches in the reservation time, and we ended a wonderful weekend with a fantastic dinner together.

Casey's 24 oz. prime rib

All Dolled Up AGAIN!--and well worth it!

Nice 'stache!

Ah, my husband's sense of humor.

One thing I have learned about Casey over the years--well, it probably only took about a week of knowing him--is that he is not a fan of shaving. He says he will never take a job that requires him to be clean shaven daily.

But do not mistake his dislike for razors for a dislike of facial hair. Casey loves to recount his history as a model for a professional photographer, one whose work has even been featured in Rolling Stone. It all began when he lived in Chicago and he and his comrades at Emmaus decided to best one another with the worst looking facial hair possible. From the neck beard to the mutton chops, these guys found humor in grotesque formations of facial hair. While in process of said challenge, Casey went to Home Depot to pick up some plumbing tools. While in the plumbing aisle, he was approached by a woman who asked him "Hey, do you like to have your picture taken?" The rest is history. He left the store a professional model. The artist's series of photos at the time she requested Casey's assistance as model was something along the lines of people who have boring jobs and fantasize about something more exotic. Pictured below is the plumber who wants to be David Bowie, glam rocker. Admire the 'stache! (Yes, Casey has make-up on his face).

Each winter, Casey takes the opportunity to grow lots and lots of facial hair--like I said, any excuse not to shave. This past winter, Casey grew quite the bushy beard. And of course, any time the beard has been around long enough, Casey begins dreaming of how he can contort the facial hair into some new and ridiculous way. With the advent of warmer weather, he has been itching to get rid of the beard. Apparently, so were many of the men at our house church. They got together on Sunday at church and planned "Mustache Wednesday."

And so as not to leave out those fellas who didn't have time to grow a 'stache, Tim was kind enough to have some stick-ons ready!
What a good-looking bunch of guys, eh?