Back to Class--wait, Paper, or something

Well, I just had my first session (class?) of my developmental psychopathology paper, and it felt like it went well. There were 18 students there--a good size, though there are 24 signed up, so we'll see how it develops--and several who seem willing to speak up (in a good way). Only three men--brave souls; we'll see if they stay. Nice classroom, with all the techie stuff well-organized and seems to be working (once I figured out how to turn the lights on, which was not that simple). Close by, on my floor, just the other side of the staff tea room. Now I have to try to figure out the online system for communicating with the class. students. I think they understood my accent...

I am also finding my way around campus a little bit, venturing out--quite near my building is the student union, which has many conveniences--I found the hairdresser yesterday, and she cut my hair barely perceptably, but decently. There is a pharmacy, dairy (which means convenience store), a couple of banks (not ours...), travel agent, at least three eating places, and apparently there used to be surf shop, but it closed. The rec center--wait, centre--is also there, and Manford plans to join and work out there.

Manford and kids are now at the Mall, where Joseph is seeing the Harry Potter movie (5), and we hope Manford and Emily found something else to see or do. I am envying Joseph, but the first show was exactly during my first class, and, though tempted, I couldn't quite work it into the syllabus. outline.

We are bidding on a house! It is across the street from Joseph's school (from the fields, anyway), and so only about two blocks from Emily's school, also across the street from a park we haven't explored yet, but which seems to have a long bike path and a lot of grass. It has four bedrooms--one quite small, but ok for video games and guests, and also both a living room (aka Lounge) and a family room (which could serve as another guest room) and a small office. The rooms are a bit small than the other house we're considering, but there are more of them, and it seems congenial...needs a bit of cosmetic work, such as taking up the carpet, which has wood floors under it, and I'd like to refinish them, and putting in a better fence (it's on a corner; next door in one direction is a huge overgrown barrier of ivy and other unknown plants, which might have been nice at one point but is now out of control and huge in some places and holey in others). So if we get it, we will close in mid-August and have some time to get some work done. But the owners are waiting to see if they get a house that is being auctioned tomorrow, so it may be a few days before we see how it comes out.

Back to work.