Any readers left?

So at this rate, I am anticipating that you have all given up on me and assume I will never write another entry in my blog again. Sigh - don't give up on me. My life wasn't very exciting . . . until. . .

I cast my musical for the spring. It will be the Spitfire Grill. Never heard of it? Excellent. I get excited that I finally found a musical few people have heard of. While the department is scared it won't draw people, I'm excited because I think the kids will really really learn something, and that is after all my job, yes?

I know lots of you are wondering about my future. Ha - well, so am I. I still don't know for sure that I will be in RI next year, but since I haven't heard I'm not going to be, I'm hoping to be employed for yet another year. I've been putting apps out all over the country, and even had a phone interview (that didn't get me a fly out interview :-( ), but not really getting any nibbles. That's okay. Most of the searches are open for a while longer.

I got to SLC two weeks ago and cannot BELIEVE that half of my break is almost over! Where does the time go? I'll tell you where it goes . . . to my lovely family who all flew out here for Christmas. It is the first time since Chris' wedding (five and a half years) that we have all been together for Christmas. It was really a grand time!! My nephew is adorable and got 24 hour a day attention. He is almost walking (not quite nine months) and loves to army crawl (not so fond of regular crawling). He also loves to make monster sounds (such a boy), and will almost always make them back at you if you start it. Among his other favorites: sticking out his tongue and spitting, laughing on an inhale (it is so strange and adorable at the same time), bouncing up and down while he's trying to walk, kicking water everywhere during bath, and crying if he is not getting full attention all the time :-) Yes, he is indeed, a Dean.

Both of my brothers and their wives are gone and I miss them all terribly. It was most wonderful to get to see my 92 and 95 year old nonni interact with Ethan. And of course, the excitement of my other sister-in-law, Becky (Chris' wife), who is now four months pregnant. Little N squared (short for "niece or nephew) is on the way!

I am beginning to catch some anxiety because I haven't done any school related work for two weeks and I've got an enormous stack that is literally giving me nightmares. As soon as you become a professor, all those dreams you had about being a student and being late for class turn into you are a teacher and you are late for class and your class is walking out on you; you don't have your syllabus ready for the first day of class; you don't have your lesson plans; your students are acting like they are in junior high and talking over you and you can't take control of the classroom; you don't actually know the subject you are teaching (like I have to teach biology). When I wake up, the dreams are really pretty amusing. But, not so much when I'm sleeping. So, next week I will get a lot of work done for school which will include: writing all my syllabi; working a ton on the musical which begins rehearsing the week we get back; organizing all of the chorus music; and planning out the first month of classes (more or less) because once rehearsals begin, I won't be free until March 6th when we close.

All right - that should catch you all up on my life. I promise if you haven't stopped reading this yet, that I will write again :-) Lots of love to all of you and happy New Year!