Today was World Youth Day at church. The teenagers do all the "jobs" (lector, usher, etc.) and the band plays. The music was so beautiful. A cute little boy with super thick glasses was sitting behind me, and during the handshake of peace, he stuck his hand out eagerly to every person surrounding him, while wearing a big smile. It was such a beautiful fall walk home, and all I could think was "it's great to be alive."

Difficult week on campus. I handed out a sheet the university asked us to distribute about safety and also listing the offices where students can go for help if they are depressed. They also asked us to give the students a chance to talk about it if they wanted and when I did this in last night's class (I doubt many other faculty do this, to be honest), I got an earful. The students are scared, and they don't feel as if the university does enough to keep them safe. I have to do it again on Tuesday, and I guess after that I will take the remarks I wrote down to my department's chair for him to report it to the dean or someone else. I doubt it will help, but I promised the students that is what I would do.

It was a beautiful weekend. It is a great year for foliage. Yesterday, we went to Golden Harvest and got apples, we also took a tour of their new distillery, where they make vodka. I made apple crisp! It is so easy, much faster than pie, and it came out delicious. I think I am feeling a lot better re: Lyme Disease, but I still find myself extremely tired at times.

I think if I was still keeping a paper journal this would probably be one of those dry spells where I could cast it aside for months, if not years. Part of the problem at the moment is that the things that are on my mind are not things I write about here. (Mostly about students, but also about a few other things as well.) So maybe the reality is that a private, paper journal would be more useful to me right now.

I decided to figure out where I will be hosting my website. I wound up buying space from Verizon, since the 10MB I get with my account won't be nearly enough. It was something of an aggravating process, in that I couldn't remember my user ID, password or even email address, and resetting them meant I had to change my router settings...and guess what? I couldn't remember the password for that either. Finally I got that all working, and then I contacted AOL to determine how much webspace I would need, and they couldn't easily answer that question. So, I wound up simply multiplying the number of AOL screen names by the amount of webspace. I don't know if I am using that much but at least I know I couldn't have been using more than that. Now, to find the time to transfer everything over, which will mean making revisions since the address will have changed, and the links won't work otherwise. It is way past time for a complete overhaul anyway, but spending time on that when grading essays is the priority will be a challenge.

Bummer.

I got a message yesterday that AOL is closing down hometown and FTP. I guess this means I will have to find a new host for my website! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! How irritating. Hopefully either Verizon or Time Warner includes space. But even having to transfer the files is annoying. Not something I have time for!

After two days of barking and equipment noise, the crew has moved up the street and the hounds (make that one full-hound and one half-hound) can get some much needed rest. Edna was able to prowl the yard. All is well.

Make that all is almost well! Reading the paper this morning, in Dr. Fox's column a voluntary recall of Mars dry cat and dog food is announced due to possible salmonella contamination. The dogs eat a homemade diet, Edna eats Wellness canned and Fancy Feast dry, but Ande, who eats Wellness dry food (although he is not at all a big eater), adores Natural Temptations. I got a free sample when I bought Wellness, which is the only reason I tried it. So we give him many treats per day, because he expects one when the dogs get a cookie and it is so cute. Natural Temptations are made by Mars! Although I haven't noticed any signs of illness, in the article, "Natural" is one of the brands listed in the recall.

So I went to the website and luckily, "Natural" is a Sam's Club brand; Natural Temptations aren't listed. What a relief!

Two pieces of good news! I think I finally found a decent hosting service for my audio files: Box.net, and I located a few pairs of Supreme Softspot Trek shoes in my size! (Not linking since I don't want anyone else swooping in to buy them :-).