I have made a miraculous recovery from the flu (at least I hope it�s a recovery and not just a lull). After having a fever of nearly 103 yesterday afternoon, I appear to have pretty much returned to normal today, although my stomach�s still feeling a bit wonky. I did, however, have enough energy to do crazy Peanuts dancing with AJ after he got home from school. And also enough energy to beat the crap out of the ice dams in my gutters that are looking quite terrifying. The latter activity was strangely calming, although I think AJ was a little terrified and I�m pretty sure that I looked like a homicidal maniac while I was doing it. I did manage to knock down a couple of icicles that were nearly as tall as I am.

The rest of the day has been spent attending to miscellaneous neglected household tasks and tweaking my syllabus and course website. I�m finding it difficult to squeeze everything I want to do into the course and I�m now faced with slicing out some pretty major composers in order to make things fit. The trick is, I think, to stop looking at the course from the point of what I want/need to teach and start thinking about it from the point of view of a student who is trying to get something out of it. To this end, and since you�ve all been so helpful lately, I wonder if I could pose a question to you more directly. If you were to take classical music appreciation course, whether by choice or because your advisor says you have to if you want to graduate, is there anything in particular you�d like to know more about? If you have taken such a course in the past, what did you like/hate about it? Anyone who responds will get extra credit for class participation.

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