SF part IV: hopefully not as bad as Star Wars I.

I go home on a late-evening flight tonight so may yet post from the airport if my flight is endlessly delayed.

Today was a lovely day for the end of the trip. Woke up early and relatively well-rested, and went down to the Ferry Building's fabulous farmers' market on Saturday mornings. This trip has been one of those "best of my life" eating experiences. If I could make you all bran/currant/ citrus peel muffins like the one I had this morning from the rather generically named Downtown Bakery, you would be in love with muffins. Seriously, packed with nutrition and the most melt-in-your-mouth yumminess possible in a muffin-shaped package. Had I many many days, I would also have gotten their extremely popular "donut muffin" but I wasn't in a sugary mood this morning.

The family in front of me in line had a family story that I suspect they'll treasure for a long time. A married couple probably late 50's-early 60's and their college-age daughter were in line at the bakery and the guy got bored and wandered off, promising to return in 5 minutes to meet the women. He wandered off whistling, and a passerby thought he was a panhandling musician and gave him a dollar! We teased him that he could keep his family in muffins if he went for a longer walk. :) My father is also a whistler and I have many happy memories of chasing him around the house as a little kid shouting "Kill the bird!" and getting in tickle fights when I caught him. Anyway, happy memories for all. And fabulous muffins.

I went to one last conference session this morning on writing and rhetoric. The session itself was an interesting look at new media in the writing classroom and the tradeoffs between engaging students and teaching them what they need to know to succeed in upper-level coursework and traditional academic writing. I fall on the "blog postings aren't sufficient to equip students to write journal articles" side of this divide, in case you're wondering. However, I got several useful ideas for ways to incorporate video, audio, music, and wikis/ blogs into lesson plans aimed at teaching basic rhetorical concepts. These may prove useful if I get the job I'm interviewing for next week.

I have a teaching interview! Woot! Even though it may not pan out for a variety of reasons (pregnancy anyone?) I'm so glad to make someone's finalist list somewhere that I have been spending my spare hours here planning my sample class. I may get to teach writing next year yet; we'll see how all the various offers and joint appointment possibilities and interviews go in the weeks ahead. But that's to think about after my return home.

After the end of the panel, and hotel checkout, I headed up to North Beach. Had a lovely veggie risotto for lunch at Pomodoro Trattoria, then hung out in Washington Square Park and read the whole paper on the grass in the sunshine. It's around 70 degrees and super-sunny here today so could hardly be a more delightful afternoon to spend by myself.