Sunday, 15 May 2011
So today is that “in between” day – you know, that time after a big event occurs, but before it’s time to get back to the usual grind.
We had to dig out from Owen’s party: there were clothes and a table cloth to wash, and decorations to put away. We feasted on more Subways and birthday cake, chips, trail mix, and fruit. I had to put batteries in one of Owen’s new toys, and I helped him assemble his new Lego Star Wars sets (though he did almost all of it himself – I was quite impressed, actually). I wanted to get him set up with his bike but the weather was still lousy.
He and I also tried to assemble the bubble-blowing robot he received as a gift, but I must’ve done something wrong somewhere along the way, ’cause at the moment it’s not working.
Later, he worked on the connect-the-dots pages he got as a lovely parting gift from his classmate’s party. He was also given a set of chopsticks, so when Jennifer made him some vegetables as a snack while we watched the season finale of Survivor, Owen ate them with his chopsticks.
Monday, 16 May 2011
I began the day with a final exam. I expect I performed well on the exam, though I was a bit frustrated to not get a perfect score on the matching section. The professor had previously stated that he would not try to trick us, but he included two excerpts from poems that both discussed women’s slighted role in society. I couldn’t figure out which excerpt belonged to which poem, so I guessed the same poem for both, knowing that this would at least give me one correct. Also, there was a rather cryptic passage from an essay, and damned if I could tell which Native American was speaking in that instance. Sorry, but I mix up Red Jacket, Seattle, Apess, Occom, and Handsome Lake as much as the next white guy. So…I don’t know…I got at least 16 out of 20 on the matching game, and as high as 19 out of 20.
I felt better about the essays (I had to write four of them). But you never know how the professor’s feel about essays, it’s not quite as empirical as a multiple choice test. I was the fifth person in the class to finish, which means that ultimately my exam should appear pretty far down in the pile. My hope, then, is that the professor will have to plow through some pretty lousy exams so that once he comes to mine, he’ll think, “Now this is a good essay!”
This evening, after work, Owen finally got to try out his bicycle. He had his usual trepidation – the kind of trepidation he expresses for all major changes in life, such as when the weather warms and he is forced to go from long sleeves to short sleeves.
After a few minutes, however, he claimed to be enjoying the bicycle and was getting used to the feel of it. When he was done, I had him ride the bike right into the apartment complex and into the elevator (he didn’t seem to have a problem with this). We brought the bike into our home and I adjusted the seat and the training wheels for him and then spent about twenty minutes wrestling with the horn, which I’m sure I will grow sick of hearing after about one or two honks.