Walker - the apple of my eye!

Well, we are still alive.
First, there was the car wreck, and then Jenn got stranded at work for a few days, and then Walker got locked in the library overnight, and then our entire apartment was lifted off the building in a tornado. (pause for effect) I wish we had such exotic excuses, but unfortunately, the mundane mixture of church, school, and work responsibilities is culprit. I guess we'd rather have it that way, though.

Work as an English Composition instructor at the University of New Haven is in full swing--I spend most of my "non-working" hours grading essays and preparing lessons. The students write eight essays over the course of the semester, plus a research paper. The writing assignments are continuous. The bad news: some students don't really invest themselves in their writing, so they produce boring and poorly organized papers. The good news: with the proper incentives (a stringent grading rubric with the opportunity to raise poor grades), students are forced to correct
their mistakes, rethink some of their ideas, and--thereby newly invested in their work in progress--infuse the essay with more deep and lucid ideas and better writing. It's great! Such a system requires a lot of work on my part.

So that's been the story of the last month or so of my life. I'm either working at the medical school writing up notes or doing research or taking phonecalls, or I'm preparing for class and grading essays. In the meantime, Walker and I have been able to some fun things over the past few weeks.

A few weeks ago, we joined the Brackens, another young couple in our congregation, and traveled to the Manhattan LDS Temple, where we spent time in the peace and quiet of this special place. I graded papers in the car. Last weekend, we also spent some time over at the Brackens, this time enjoying some tasty pies and college football. I graded papers and tossed in my two cents when I couldn't resist the topic of conversation. Yesterday, after writing/grading papers all morning, Walker and I went apple-picking. The strong sweet scent of fall filtered from the fields into our late afternoon sun-warmed noses, ripening our tastebuds for the tangy, mellow, and sugary juices of the ruby red, crimson, and emerald apples. After a ride in a noxious-gas-emitting tractor, the mood momentarily soured. After walking a few rows down off the beaten orchard path, the sun and trees and sweet scent of apples soon coaxed us back into the realm of the natural world. We made a game of trying to find the Mutsu apples; each tree had been thoroughly picked over and stripped (almost) clean of its fruits. Walker won, although I must say that, had I known it was a competition from the outset, the score might have evened out a bit. We enjoyed the fruits of our labors in an apple cobbler this evening.

Walker has spent his time diligently, writing essays, doing homework and problem sets, and preparing a dazzling array of early-morning seminary lessons.

That's all from us for now! Hope you are all having a wonderful week.