Once upon a time I gave a guest lecture and did not die of nerves.

First, some housekeeping. Literally. The Husband and I were gifted a set of wallflowers for our wedding, and put them up the other day to try and make our dining room look like a friendly space, rather than a bright red, dark hole. Seriously, you guys, it's kind of gothic-ish in there. Or it was, until we put these things up.
Here is how it went down:
Husband: puts tacks into wall
Me: puts flowers over tacks.
Us: small talk.
Me: Stepping back. "Um, did we mean to make a Jesus fish?"
Husband: "It's not a Jesus fish, where do you see a fish?"
Me: "Well, that is the eye, and..." (pointing to the glaringly obvious fish shape on our wall)
Husband: "Shall we call it Moby?"
Me: "That's too obvious. Ishmael?"

So today I gave the guest lecture that I mentioned being terrified about earlier, and it went stupidly well. I learned that lecturing is not at all like giving a seminar, mostly because the dynamic is so different. In my experience, nervousness during a seminar stems from the fear that all of your classmates have a more sophisticated reading of the text than you do, and that they are waiting for you to finish so they can bust it out and make you look stupid. Today, my nervousness had more to do with delivery. Am I covering the most important parts of the material? Are they engaged? Am I being clear enough? Are they understanding me? Do I need to clarify anything? I stuttered at least twice, lost my place in my notes as many times, laughed nervously a ton, and actually stopped at one point to say "can you tell that I'm nervous?" At this point, they laughed. Not the "OMG, how can you expect to teach if you're so imcompetent that you're nervous" type of laughter, either. This was the understanding, "of course you're nervous, you're doing okay" kind of laughter. I felt better. Then we broke into groups and looked at passages and discussed them as a class. The discussion went beautifully- they were engaged and articulate, and at one point they even started debating! I take no responsibility for this, the class that I was in front of were just a set of students who worked well together, enjoyed the material, and all decided to focus and participate. That being said, the experience was super empowering and fulfilling- I can do this!

The holidays.

Once, over at Hyperbole and a Half she posted something about how most bloggers don't blog over the holidays, and so she posted three pictures of Rick Morenis over Christmas break (which apparently did not count as blogging either, but that is between her and Boyfriend, and none of my business). Anyways, this past weekend was Thankgsiving here in Canada, and so my husband and I went to visit my parents up in the rural area of my province (anyone who can read IP addresses can probably tell where I am (?), but I don't feel like talking about it just yet). We drank too much and ate too much, and not only did I not blog, but I also had a minor nervous break down. My mom has called me six times today to tell me I need to see a doctor, and has threatened to make the five hour drive to the city to force me to do it. So I might just do it. I know I promised her I would.
Anyways, I hear there have been at least 8 (!) people other than me that have seen this. Maybe you are the same person 8 times (!). That would be okay too. Also: maybe you are 4 people twice each(!!). Whatever you are, all of the internet places that talk about blogging suggest asking questions to get more comments (<----this is hinting, right here, because I want to know that some of you aren't me and I am not just misreading my blog stats), so I have a question for you here:
Tell me about your thanksgiving traditions?**
Also, to make up for not posting all weekend and for posting mostly fluff that explains that I did not post all weekend today I will try to make this a two post day, and to make the other post suck less. Yay!


**not really a question.