Crappy Day, but I have a new iPad to play with, so that's something. :)

Oh my god! I feel AWFUL today!! I woke up because I couldn't breathe. Ugh. And with a terrible headache from the congestion. The headache is gone, but my head is so congested that I haven't been able to take a nap either even though I'm totally exhausted. I have a call into the nurse at the OB's office to see what I can take to get rid of this mess. I need to get some sleep tonight. Oh, and I need to be able to breathe, too. It's fine. It's not like I have to teach tomorrow, but it is inhibiting my ability to really read and concentrate on the reading, which is a shame, because I'm actually enjoying this novel that I'm teaching next week. But I need to make more and better progress on it. 

You know, if you had told my 20 year old self that one day I would not only be teaching American Realism and James and Howells and the like, but that I would enjoy these texts, I would have laughed so hard at you that I would have peed and then passed out from the asthma attack I would have laughed myself into. Part of the reason why I went into the part of the century I went into was because I didn't want to have to anything to do with Realism. But now. Wow. I'm actually really digging this stuff and really enjoying teachng it. The reading of it is much slower than other texts, but  if I can knock this book out by Saturday, then I'm doing good here. And then I can spend Sunday working on the stuff for the survey class. A bit behind schedule, but I'm trying not to beat myself up for my lack of speediness. 

I feel like I've been reading for hours, but I think it turns out I've only been reading for like three or four hours. It feels like way longer than that because I've been up since about 5:30 this morning. I did a lot of putzing around while I waited for my headache to go away, and then I tried twice to take a nap, unsuccessfully. But I feel like I should have gotten more done today, but unfortunately, I think I might be done with my reading. When I'm done with this, I think I may just lie down for a bit before I start chopping veggies for tonight's dinner.

But, I'm super geeked that I'm doing this whole blog post on my iPad and the new keyboard that I got for it. It's actually kind of cool, the keyboard. It isn't attached to a case, but it comes with its own carrying case that folds into a computer stand for the iPad. We used my birthday money to put toward the iPad for my Christmas present from the husband (there's no way I could justify asking him to spend $499 on even the "cheapest" one for a Christmas present). But I feel like my reasons for wanting one were/are totally silly. I got it, with the intent of getting the bluetooth keyboard because I thought it'd be easier to work with, FB, read blogs, read, surf the web, with a sleeping baby in my lap than the laptop, even though my laptop is great. I love that thing. I also got it for a budget app and for the gradebook pro app. I thought these things might make my life easier once the baby gets here, and again, I thought the iPad would be so much easier to fiddle with than the laptop. 

Turns out, while the kid is nowhere near here yet, I might be right. I love that when I open the case, the internet is up. There's no booting or start up process. Everything is right there. I thought I'd like it, but I didn't imagine that I'd LOVE this thing! I've got a magazine on here already, which is nice because the last thing I need around here is another paper magazine that's going to end up in the trash.  The battery lasts longer. It's so easy and convienent. I like blogging on it, to be honest. This is easy, comfortable, and perfect. This little keyboard is amazing. And the hardcase means it will travel well. Now, this may all be a totally different story when the kid gets here, but for now, OMG, I'm in love with it. And to try to justify the cost of this, I'm totally trying to make this as utilitarian as possible. So I've got the Pages app, which seems to be ok for the test drive I gave it. I can store all of this on the cloud or in Dropbox or GoogleDocs, so hopefully very little will stay on the actual iPad. So we'll see how that works. I want to try to use it for word processing and in trying to get myself/research organized. I ordered a highly recommend stylus that I'm supposed to be able to write on the iPad with that got great reviews for it's writing function, so I'm going to try to take notes with it. We'll see. This may turn out to be one big disaster, and it may turn out that I can only end up using it for minor word processing or no notes or for just reading, blogging, and FBing, but for now it's fun to play around with this thing and see what I can make it do.

Anybody out there with an iPad use it for writing/organizing/note taking? Any good apps you can recommend? Or any issues you've run into? I would just love to be able to *use* this for stuff other than entertainment.