Thanks to those of you who expressed concern about my computer issues. It’s been fixed! It appears to have been an issue with operating system, as the technician thought it might be. All of my files are okay. In fact, even the one I made the same day before my computer froze was there. My bookmarks in Firefox looked like they might be lost until I remembered that I had used Firefox Sync, so I logged in and boom! They were all back.

I do appear to be missing some applications, and I need to reinstall a few others. Plus I was on El Capitan, and the new install is Yosemite. But I’m back in business, and none the worse for wear. We have a very good Apple technician. We are so lucky! A lot of people commented that I was awfully calm about the computer issue, but the thing is, I have worked with this guy for nearly four years, and he’s amazing. I had absolute confidence he would be able to fix it. I was impressed with how fast he fixed it, though. I expected to be out a computer for a few days at least, just because of the volume of work he has to do. I guess I was lucky because it was after break, and perhaps he didn’t have a ton of computers to fix as a result.

The summer before last, I had a big issue with my computer and tried to fix it myself. I have a bit of pride, as a former tech integrator, and I do know how to fix a lot of things. However, what I wound up doing on that previous occasion was completely erasing my hard drive. I have learned my lesson, and now I take things I can’t fix to the tech office.

Today was the first day of classes after break. My AP students had read The Hours by Michael Cunningham over the break, so we discussed it just a little bit before we started viewing the film, which is a fine adaptation of the novel. Students will write a paper after we finish. My American literature students began a narrative writing assignment today using a brainstorming technique one of my colleagues likes to use with students. First, I timed the students, giving them two minutes to brainstorm as many incidents as they could think of when they had a chance to stand up for themselves or someone else and either did or did not do so. Then I asked them to pick one and gave them seven minutes to sketch out the incident. Now they are to turn the sketch into a longer narrative to be workshopped next week.

It was good to see the students again. They had good breaks. Some of them traveled. Some stayed around town. They seemed rested and happy to be back. They are also counting down the days until the end of the school year, though. I learned from them today that we have 33 school days left.

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.