April Update

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy.

First, there was cheering on the Jayhawks as they made their way through the basketball tournament. It was fun watching them win. My friend Beth, who attended grad school with me at KU, called during the last few minutes of the game so we could watch it together. Which was great fun.

The joy of that Monday evening was marred, however, by the passing of my husband's grandmother. On Wed. we drove up to the Quad Cities with his parents for the funeral, and stayed until Sat. Of course such trips are always hard. I did not know his grandmother very well, had not seen her for several years. And there was some family politics going on that neither I nor my husband were directly involved in. But overall, the trip was good. There were some fun times - playing rockband with the younger cousins (ages 10 - 16), eating Whitey's Ice Cream and Rudy's Tacos, staying out until (get this) 3:30 in the morning hanging out with the older cousins (i.e. the cousins that are our age). The late night included running out of gas at 3:00 am in our cousin's Camero. It seems his dad, who is a tinkerer extraordinaire, had changed the gas gauge such that when it is on E, you are out of gas. It was rather funny.

I came back to my classes behind schedule and have been trying to figure out how to get back on track. Oh- and with our taxes not started. Two late nights of working on taxes . . . and getting your taxes in at 10 pm on April 15th is much different in Kansas City than it was in Lawrence. At the Lawrence post office, they have a "party" with a band playing. And, we could walk to the post office and drop off the taxes. Not so easy in KC. First, we went to the local Independence post office - not open, no messages about where you could drop off your taxes. We were able to get postage from the automatic kiosk.

When we got home, I called the post office phone number, and they said that there were extended hours, but they all ended at 9 pm. At this point I panicked a bit. Then I thought, wait, its 10 pm, and they always show last minute tax filers on the news. Sure enough, there was the local newscaster at the downtown post office. Off we went. We were stuck in a very slow moving line of traffic coming off the highway, though once you got to the post office things went really smoothly. I was glad we already had our postage purchased.

Last week, we had senior thesis presentations on Monday and Tuesday until about 8:45 each night.

Friday was the last day of regular class. Yes, I still have finals to write, give, and grade. Yes we have a ton of meetings coming up. Yes, I have a huge stack of grading to finish this weekend.
But - I have made it through my first full year of teaching college, and I am excited to start back in the fall.

Oh - and spring has finally made an appearance here in KC. I do have some pictures that I will post later.