Too much fun at work

I have been working at home lately, and it's so fun. Not during office hours (when I'm usually on campus), but just at night and on weekends. I can't stay away from my email, or keep from logging into ecampus (the online class system thing at school). It's been a long time since I've had a job that I liked that much. Last night, I shut my laptop lid and felt a little naughty for not finishing with all my messages and emails. I could be a workaholic, but I can totally turn it off when needed. In fact, I'm usually pretty insistent about only working when I'm "supposed to", if for no other reason than I have too much other stuff to do. But the last couple of weeks, I can't resist it.

In particular, I'm in a bunch of online classes with "teacher" access, so I get to answer questions about a particular project we're doing. It's a hoot. So many online teachers lack an internet personality, so I try really hard to be friendly and helpful. I'm learning a lot about how instructions need to be clear, and even if you think they're as clear as humanly possible, SOMEONE will get confused. I think the perfect assignment design would be dozens of pages long, complete with every possible scenario. For an assignment with any type of technology involved (for example, in the project I'm helping with, they have to save images from the internet), it would have 100 different sets of directions to cover every possible configuration of student ability and operating system.

I do get annoyed at the dumb questions. I can't fathom receiving an email as a student that says, for example, "If you complete this assignment, you will not have to complete the group assignment", and responding to ask, "So you're saying if I complete this assignment, I won't have to complete the group assignment?" Grrrr! But since this is my first time to design instructions for a project, it's fun. It will be fun to see what I come up with next semester to make things run more smoothly than they did this semester. I'm sure whatever I do will have it's own set of amusing, aggravating issues. LOL

I got to go to the CEC TED conference Friday. It's the Council for Exceptional Children Teacher Education Division. Basically, a conference for people who train special ed teachers. It was in Dallas this year. It was a great time. I hope I never get tired of those conferences, because for now, they're still exciting to me. The professors seem to enjoy them too, so there is hope! It can be hard to sit through sessions for a whole day, but I learn something at every one. Next weekend is the Adventures in Autism conference. It's more of a regional thing, and we're hosting it at UNT. I, along with a doc student, am on the list as a presenter, but I'm betting my boss will do most of it. I like her more all the time. Like I always say, my only real requirement of a person is that they're nice. The more I get to know her, the more I think she is well-intentioned and kind. She's done SO MUCH for me. On top of that, she is really stinkin' good at what she does. I'm looking forward to the autism conference, hoping to crack some more mysteries of my niece, Emma.

We had her 5th birthday party today, BTW. I'll post pics later.

Anyway, there is so much going on at work, and I'm feeling more comfortable in my job there all the time. I have more to do than I'll ever get done, but it's more exciting than frustrating. Just having a chance to TRY to get it done is a lucky thing.