I took down our Christmas lights yesterday — just got tired of waiting for the winter to come… Seriously, I don’t think it’s coming this year. I got seedlings to start and don’t want them to be confused. This weather has confused enough plants already. I’ve seen foot-tall daffodils and tulips around the city yesterday. To me, this absence of cold and snow in February feels a little bit like the morning of a sleepless party night: even though it was fun to be able to run around in lighter clothes, to avoid gloomy and slushy days, and not to freeze my ears off, I’m a little worried — what if my garden didn’t get enough rest for the new season?
You know me, I worry about things like that… Especially after hearing that the canals in Venice froze… Yesterday I learned that the rest of the world is a big climactic mess too, according to this map (which I stole from this Huff Post article).
Except for Brazil, Tibet, and Kazakhstan… Those seem to be the only 3 places in the world where everything is normal.
We haven’t gone Upstate since Christmas but according to witness reports there are only small patches of snow left on the ground. I just hope that my garlic is ok.
This is the first spring semester in several years that we didn’t have a “snow day”– and I could really use one… Ever since my classes started in January, it’s been an avalanche of work. I’m teaching 4 courses this semester (Intermediate Russian 1, Advanced Russian, Russian Short Story, and Introduction to Russian Drama) — which is my normal load for the Spring but I don’t think I’ve ever spent entire weekends at the office. Certainly, not enough time for blogging… The enrollments are up — it is a great thing (one of the classes is even over-enrolled) but also means more homework to grade! Plus, there’s been a load of administrative work, recommendation letters, etc. etc.
Don’t worry though, this semester I’ve been uncharacteristically organized and everything is totally under control. It’s just that sometimes, after teaching 4 classes (trying to explain verbal adverbs, perfective & imperfective aspects of the Russian verb, infanticidal tzars and runaway noses — all in one day), I feel like my only desire is to sit and stare silently at the wall for a couple of hours (like my former roommate Alex’s cat Ayavrik). And that explains my antisocialism… I mean, antisociality… antisocial behavior. Something.
Despite the overwhelming work avalanche, I actually quite like my job this year and my students (or, at least, enough of them) are great. Would you like to see what they look like? Here’s a student of mine who graduated last Spring. It turns out, he has been working on this cool start-up called GardenUp that develops units for vertical/urban gardening. Watch him talk about it in this video:
Boris (my student) says they tested their systems on the roof of the Four Seasons in Philly last summer and their head chef was very impressed. Did you know that hydroponics can be organic? I didn’t realize that… I hope to write more about this soon but in the meantime, please check their KickStarter page. I think their Science Herbie unit is the cutest. Feel free to also like GardenUp (as well as The Feral Gardener) on Facebook.
As for me, it’s time to start making seed starter mixes and turning our windowsills into a nursery again.
More about everything soon. (And that is my new motto!)
Links in this post:
http://www.kickstarter.com/
http://www.gardenupnow.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_hydroponics
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-yeager/january-coolest-month-glo_b_1285165.html
https://www.facebook.com/garden
i like the “winter blues and greens” title! and nice to give a shout out to ayavrik
Thank you! Sometimes I miss Ayavrik. We had some good times… Not many, but we did have some.