Wow - it's February already

I start teaching today - really looking forward to it - new classes, new students. Should be lots of fun. This year I'm teaching Short Story and Novel 2 on campus at Box Hill and Writing for Children, Short Story1A (in second semester)and Non-fiction writing online with a couple of other strange little subjects in the new curriculum as well. Should be a great year. I'm looking forward to just working on campus at one place, rather than two or three. I'm also looking forward to honing the online courses so that they are better than they have ever before been. The new web ct platform is so much better than the old one, but - the same old story - I've never been given enough lead time or training to make it work to my complete satisfaction.

However, this year, I feel more confident with it. I've used it for a whole year now and put up a number of courses. Although it's always a bit of a relearning experience putting up a new course after a semester's break, I have started the process with Writing for Children and it's all working quite smoothly. (She says crossing her fingers!)

We went to the Chelsea Yacht Club yesterday to hear some old friend of Keith's play in a band. It's a great little venue - right on the beach. Had a slow afternoon sitting on the verandah, chatting. I knitted. The girlchild swam. Very relaxing.

Actually it was a great weekend all around. I feel ready for the working week. I want this year to be filled with recreational weekends and hard working weeks. As opposed to hard working weeks and stressed out weekends which we seemed to have more than our share of last year.

And, of course, on Thursday it's the Chinese New Year. But the girlchild's babysitting, so how are we going to do our wish tree I wonder? Must consult tomorrow. I was goign to hear Nicki Greenberg talk about her graphic novel but I could cancel that in order to celebrate Chinese New Year. I have heard Nicki before.