Wrapping Upchuck: 4-15-10

Tax day, the day the Titanic sunk, the day Abraham Lincoln died ...

My birthday.

42 years old.

And it was a good day.

It started with a hot cup of coffee and the Newspaper and lots of good morning hugs, kisses, and birthday wishes from my squirrelly girlies. There is something good about being the only dude in a four person family!

Also had my last day of physical therapy today. Graduated by completing a 10 minute jog on the treadmill. I'm pretty much back in the running saddle if I want to be; and I have to say it is a thrilling prospect to know that, if all proceeds accordingly from here on out, I will be running the Crescent City Classic next year. (By the way, I hope Fox News and the conservative tin foil hatters don't catch wind that New Orleans is affectionately known as the "crescent" city. They might think we've become irretrievably and horrifyingly Islamified -- you know, given that the shape of the bend in the Mississippi River that surrounds NOLA reminds one of all those crescent moons in the flags of those scary Muslim countries.)

Anywho ... back to the point ... felt great after the Physical Therapy session as I made my way across campus to the office, where I had a series of very productive meetings with some representatives from the Hispanic Apostolate's ESL program to talk about future service-learning collaborations with their programs and our curriculum. That brought me to lunch, where I was a bit late in getting over to the student cafeteria on campus for another "lunch with the Prospectives" session. Met some very nice people and had some good conversation.

Then it was back to the office to tackle some administrative stuff, that was interrupted by a mid-afternoon coffee break meeting coordinated by one of my office colleagues and involving some other colleagues from Esperanza Charter school to discuss lots of things relative to collaborating with that public charter school (whose students are more than 50% Latino) and in helping them to promote a scholarship fundraiser to help their 7th and 8th graders pay for the costs of High School. That, too, was a very productive and good meeting. I'm sure I'll be bringing more attention to their efforts in future posts.

Returned after that to the office, met with a grad student or two, and ended the workday meeting with a group of students from my own college course in order to talk about their service-learning work for the upcoming Celebracion Latina at Laurence Park (corner of Magazine and Napoleon) this coming Sunday, from 12-6pm. We're planning to reprise our semester-long Sring storytime program. Every hour on the hour starting at 12pm, we'll have an open reading of our Storytime book choices (taking the first six books on the schedule in the listed order) followed by a relevant craft. The whole day should be fun, so please do come out and bring the kids.

Then, after that meeting, I did a last minute check of my email (today was also the deadline for students we admitted to our graduate program to inform us of their final decisions), tidied up some loose ends, and then caught a ride home with my Squirrelly Girlies, where I had a wonderful birthday dinner and opened my thoughtful presents. And now I'm just lounging about catching up on my favorite blogs and winding down to another early-ish bedtime.

One thing that doing these Wrapping Upchuck posts has revealed to me is how busy and full my days are, and also how much I actually do manage to get done, even though it does sometimes feel as if I manage to get nothing done.

Oh, and thanks to my many Facebook friends for their seemingly endless litany of happy birthday wishes. It's actually quite humbling and touching.

I love my life. Peace.