And so a new semester begins... tomorrow

Spring 2012 is nearly upon me. I'm mostly ready for it, although I didn't make quite as much progress on my notes for the differential equations course as I had hoped. I'm trying something new with my students, which is to give them basically a lab assignment every couple weeks, and let them struggle through the material on their own. It will be an interesting experiment, and an increase in the amount of grading that I need to do. I've also found out that I'll be heading to Reno (Truckee Meadows Community College) on February 3. The trip to Reno is short enough that I won't spend the night.

I was in Boston for a few days a couple weeks ago. The Joint Math Meetings is our annual national math conference. This year, I was on my own. The food adventure wasn't quite as interesting because I had less time. The first night (Wednesday), I got in at about 10:30 PM, and so I went to dinner at the first place I found, which was a Cheesecake Factory. It wasn't local cuisine, but it was open. And I had not had anything to eat earlier in the day except for a Croissanwich combo when I left Las Vegas (plus a couple bags of honey roasted peanuts and a couple cups of soda on the plane).

Lunch the next day was at Atlantic Fish. I did not look this place up before hand, I simply started walking and it seemed interesting. Apparently, it scores very well with the local reviewers and won an award for the best chowder in Boston. I made the mistake of stumbling across this place around early lunch time, so I wasn't hungry enough to order a lot of food. So I got the mussels appetizer and a cup of chowder, at the recommendation of the server. (This is something that I've gotten into the habit of doing when I go to eat at some place new, and I'm not sure what I want. The servers should know what's good and should be able to give you a recommendation that will lead you to the better tasting foods.) I have to admit that I wasn't overly impressed with the chowder. It was very good, but as I ate it, I wasn't blown away by it. It just seemed like a very solid chowder. The broth was smooth and creamy, the potatoes were diced very small, and there were lots of clams. I sort of wonder if chowder is the sort of thing that tastes better later in the day after the flavors all had time to marry. I got a good amount of mussel for the appetizer. The broth/sop was also quite tasty, but again it wasn't spectacular. Or maybe I'm becoming a snob and it was actually fantastic but couldn't recognize it. Either way, I'd definitely try something else if I went back.

That afternoon, I got to talk to all six of our candidates for the math position. The great news is that none of them seemed weird or otherwise disagreeable. They all felt like they would fit in the culture of the campus, and they all seemed to share the level of enthusiasm for growing and creating new things that I have. As an aside, there's one more phone interview to go, and then we've got to pick three to come out for an in-person interview. I'm excited an optimistic about that.

For dinner that night, I went to Chilli Duck (Thai). The restaurant reminded me very much of the San Francisco Chinese restaurants I've been to growing up. It had the mirrored wall and the aroma of Asian spices (though I don't know which ones... there's an Asian hole in my culinary knowledge). But whatever it was, it had that familiar smell. I didn't really look at the menu and simply asked the server, and he recommended the chili duck. (Yes, the restaurant is called Chilli Duck with the double l, but the menu item is chili duck with a single l. I didn't ask.) It was pretty good. The duck was crusted in a chili sauce and served with rice and some vegetables. The crunchy duck skin slowly got soggy as the meal went on, which was a little disappointing, but perhaps that just means I should have eaten faster. Just as with lunch, I wasn't overly impressed. I don't know what was missing, but it felt like it could have been a little bit better.

For lunch on Friday, I ate at the food court at the Prudential Center. I almost ate at Cheeseboy (grilled cheese sandwiches) but instead went for Gourmet India. For a fast food Indian place, I was surprised at how good it was. I think the naan bread was made in a tandoor, which is a very high heat cooking vessel that creates the char that is characteristic of the bread. The rice was very light and fluffy, and I felt it was better than the Thai resaturant. I don't remember what I ordered, but it was a chicken something and a potato curry. I like the Indian curries. That's something that's now on my list of things to learn how to make. If a fast food Indian place can make it, I've got to have a decent shot at figuring it out, right?

That afternoon, I gave my talk to open the session. It seemed well-received and I chatted with a couple different people afterwards (plus I got a couple requests for the slides). After listening to a couple other talks, I found a quiet place to hop on my laptop and take care of emails and other stuff that needed to get done. That evening, there was a gathering of PROMYS alumni (PROMYS is the high school math camp where I was a counselor for about three years). It wasn't too well attended, but it was attended by people I overlapped with, and it was good to reconnect with them.

We went out to dinner at a place called Ginza Japanese Restaurant. I ordered a plate of nigiri, and it was good in a standard nirgiri sort of way. That dinner was much more about the company than the food. And I'm perfectly okay with that.

On Saturday, I flew back home, so that was the end of the Boston eating. I did have a couple hours at the Phoenix airport, so I wandered around there for a while. I thought about eating at one of the more restaurant-like eateries, but decided to get a Nathan's hot dog because I've never had a Nathan's hot dog. Four dollars and six bites later, I consumed my Nathan's chili cheese dog. The hot dog itself had a nice snap and flavor to it, and the chili and cheese were both completely generic. Now I can say that I've had the hot dog that hot dog eating champions eat.

It sounds like we might have a senior pastor candidate coming through in less than a month. The search committee will send out two delegations this weekend to visit the two finalists. As much as I feel that the process seemed rushed (six months from start to finish is really short), since we don't have an interim pastor and there seems to be no desire to get one, it's probably a good thing. There are a lot of long term planning and vision sorts of things that need to happen very soon, and none of that will happen at the church without a person in that position providing a sense of stability to the planning.

I've been fighting something on my credit report for the last year, and I'm hoping that this will be the final volley to finally get the charges removed. I noticed that one of my credit limits was cut dramatically (down to 1/3 of what it was) as a result of the unwarranted collections record. The good news is that I don't use that credit card, but it's still a reminder of how much something like that can have an effect. Since I don't carry a balance, I haven't paid much attention to the interest rates, so I don't know whether those were also impacted. But since I don't carry a balance, it doesn't matter. I dropped the letter in the mailbox on Saturday, so in another four to six weeks, I should have a response. Hopefully, it will bring closure to this whole nonsense.

Many nights when I'm going to sleep, I'll turn on my iPod shuffle and listen to an episode of whatever seems like a reasonable choice. Sometimes it's Car Talk, sometimes it's Wait Wait Don't Tell me, the Splendid Table, or a sermon podcast. (Yes, I am in the habit of falling asleep while listening to sermons.) Last night, I chose to listen to This American Life. The particular episode was a poor choice of falling-asleep listening:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory

Act One is an excerpt from a one-person show. The speaker is a Mac fanatic who goes to China to see how Apple products are produced. As the story progresses, he starts to talk about visiting the factories, and meeting the 13- and 14-year old children who work 12 hours a day doing highly repetitive tasks. Descriptions of 12 ft by 12 ft dormitory rooms with 14 beds and cavernous 10,000 person cafeterias (or whatever it was) creates very strange mental images as the brain starts to doze off.

I don't make many recommendations of this type, but this episode is worth a listen. It evokes questions of social justice and matters of the exploitation of the poor. Make sure to listen to Act Two as well. The claim is made that what is going on is a step up from what used to be. This is a "better" way of life for them. (Not being knowledgeable in this level of economics, I have no idea whether it's true. But if it is it's a really sad commentary about how the world works).

It also reminded me of a picture that I saw (that I can't find) regarding the occupy movement. On one side it showed a protester claiming to be the 99% and on the side it had a picture that was probably of the poor in Africa. That thought then reminded me of another website. I am the 1%:

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

I need to go back to falling asleep to sermons. They don't cause me to think nearly as much.

It feels like only 364 days ago that it was 2010

Well, it's the end of another year. It's been anything but a stagnant year for me. I think I'll summarize in a few categories of thought.

Food:

My culinary world continues to slowly expand. I had a great food adventure in New Orleans in January. I think that those meals were probably the heartiest and tastiest foods I ate for the entire year. I still need to learn how to make red beans and rice. Then I tried making plated dinners for a party the first time for my birthday. That was both interesting and challenging in a brand new way. I had never really tried putting my food "on display" like that before. I don't quite know how to explain the distinction. Usually, making food for potlucks and bringing snacks to small group and holiday dinners is about providing something to support fellowship and general hanging-out-time. But that experience was... different.

I also participated in my second turducken with my cousin. This one was for the Wong family Christmas on December 26. It was much better than the previous one (Thanksgiving 2009). The stuffing choices were better, and the entire process was much more relaxed and felt more natural. I've been contemplating the flabby duck skin problem, and I think that for the next turducken I do, I'd completely remove the skin of the inner birds and try to just stack the breasts and legs instead of trying to roll it. I think the layers will stay put, and it would just come out better.

Travel:

I have done more traveling this year than any other year in my life. Most of that travel has come within the last couple months. Of course, there was the New Orleans trip in January to the joint meetings, a trip home over the summer, for Thanksgiving, and for Christmas, and then a trip out to San Diego and Catalina island over the summer. That's the "normal" travel for me. But this year there was also the one day Chicago trip, the one day Reno trip, the three day Duke trip, all of which happened in the last few months of the year. I would never have really thought of myself as someone who does a lot of traveling, but it looks like reality is telling me that I am.

Religion:

I don't like that word as a category, but it's probably the right word to use. And putting it third makes it seem like it's somehow less important than food and travel. But that's the order in which things have come out.

Things at church are in a place where I'd rather it not be, but it's where it is. We're without a senior pastor, the financial situation is not very encouraging, and there's just a general lack of vision and leadership. Looking back, it's kind of hard to believe that the church has gone for as long as it has in this state. However, there are still positives to report. There is a process of leadership development that is taking place despite the absence of a senior pastor. We're taking the time to build leaders who are able to study the Bible carefully and thoughtfully, which is something that has been absent in the past. Along with this, there is a renewed focus on developing small groups, which has included shifting the worship pastor to discipleship. So there's a foundation that's being laid, and maybe there will be something healthy that will built upon that in 2012.

Small group continues to go well. Couples have become families, which has changed the dynamics of the group a little bit. But it's been a good transition. I hope that our studies start to transition into something that gives the new parents in the group some space to talk about how they can raise children in a way that honors God. I have no idea how such conversations might look, but that's okay. Friendships in general feel like they've deepened, and I'm glad to be in such a good community of people.

I've started reading "Morning and Evening" by Charles Spurgeon using YouVersion. Will I actually make it through the whole year? I won't know for quite a while.

School:

So much has happened on campus this year. I've launched the remedial math program that I've been working on for a couple years, and that has worked out very well. It's exciting to see it coming around after all of the investment, and I even got some money to continue supporting those efforts. My responsibilities in this have also put me into new places, such as ending up at Duke for three days at the NGA STEM conference. These are new opportunities that I would not have imagined even existed a couple years ago. I'm also doing new things like recording lectures and introducing problem sessions into my classes. Those are interesting innovations that I think will lead to other new things in the next couple years as well.

Of course, this has all meant an increase in the amount of work that I'm doing. I'm very near to being completely maxed out, which is why I'm glad that there is a new math hire on the way. Unlike last year's search that got frozen, this year's has a clear sense of moving forward with confidence, and there's no sense that anything bad will happen this time around. I think the administration knows how thin everyone has been stretched over the last couple years, and it's good to be at a place that recognizes this and is fully supportive of bringing us back down to a better workload.

I've had a good bunch of students this year, which has made the teaching very enjoyable. I even got some gifts from students (for the first time ever)! They certainly keep the classes interesting, and for the cluster that will graduate this year, it's been good to watch them progress over the last couple years. I think this will be the first batch of students that I've seen all the way through their studies.

Life:

I had some health issues this year (neck problems requiring chiropractic work, shingles, a jump in cholesterol), but my overall health is good. I've put on some weight in the last couple years (which at this point doesn't mean much -- being 143 pounds still allows me to be classified as "skinny").

I'm an uncle. Not only that, but I've been deemed the eccentric uncle. Horray! At least I have friends here who have children that are approximately the same age (a few months older), so that I'll have at least some sense of the progression as he gets older. But it will be interesting to get the "snapshot" view of him growing up (seeing him every 6 months or so).

I don't really know what else to say. Even though there are only a couple short paragraphs under "life" there's that whole wall of text above. Life has been full and exciting (and very busy), and I'm looking forward to what next year will bring.

Happy New Year!

It's raining at Duke University. How do I know? Because I'm there.

I'm glad that I got out last night to check out the campus a bit. The weather was very pleasant. I had a couple nostalgia moments when I walked through the University center, not because I've been here before, but because there were students wandering around in slippers and things like that... stuff that you see on a residential campus and never on a commuter campus. I thought about trying to crash the InterVarsity group here, but they meet on Friday evenings, and I'll be gone by then.

But now, I'm sitting in my room at the Washington Duke Inn, watching Duke play Colorado State on TV (because there's no way I was going to be able to get tickets to this game). I'm here because I'm part of the National Governors Association Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (NGA STEM) Summit. It's going well, and I'm having a lot of interesting conversations, but it's going to cause an increase in the amount of work I'm going to have to do when I get back because I'm going to have to have a bunch of other conversations with other people. The day started at 8 AM and went until about 7:30 PM (which for me is 5 AM to 4:30 PM), and I've got another full day tomorrow, then a half day on Friday, and then a long flight home. Saturday, I go to campus to grade exams, and review some more applications. Pretty soon, the semester will be over so I can... ummmmm... keep right on working.

I'm missing finals week right now. This is a new one. I'd actually rather be there than here, but here isn't really that bad. It's really cold in Las Vegas right now, with temperatures in the low 30s. The room here is nice, the bed is comfortable, and I have free and mostly reliable internet. This trip is the second of my run of trips. The first one was going home for Thanksgiving. I got to meet my nephew in person for the first time, which was nice. He's cute, but if you want to see pictures you'll have to be friends with Corwin or Mandy. They've got plenty of pictures and I anticipate they will have plenty more.

I had turkeys three ways this year. The fried turkey still wins. And it's not really that close. It's tough to beat fried turkey. I still need to work on the smoked turkey. The flavor wasn't as sweet as what I remembered from the first time I did it for GCF a long time ago. Now *THAT* turkey could have competed with the fried turkey. I don't know if I'll ever get that one back, though. I may have to try smoking some chickens over the next year to work out what brine/smoke combinations work well.

Church things are rolling along. Where we're rolling to, I'm not sure. We still don't have an interim pastor or a senior pastor, which is making it hard for staff to really set out a direction for anything. We had a Christmas musical ("Word on the Street") which was entertaining. It was one of the many Christmas story re-tellings that are out there, this one in an urban setting. I'm not quite sure what else to say about it. On the kid's end, it looks like we're creating a children's worship service and pulling them back out of the adult service. It seems like the right move, since we've now reduced the children's participation to a single song before sending them off in prayer.

I guess that's all I've got right now. I'll be back in Vegas on Friday night, and then back in Livermore on December 22, Vegas on the 27th, Boston on January 4th, and back to Vegas on January 7th.

Wait... It's Novem... Wait... Didn't I do this last month?

[Facebook will no longer import notes from an RSS feed. But I don't want to try to figure out how to move everything from here to there, so I'll just keep everything here.]

It's been a busy month, but I'm also at a point where I feel that things have slowed down to a reasonably normal pace from the frenzy that I've been at a while now.

I'm officially an uncle. Corwin and Mandy had their first child (Elijah) on 10/27/11. I'm excited to get a chance to see him over Thanksgiving. The baby inundation continues!

I had a random conversation with some students about the appearance of age based on marriage and children. Married people are older than single people, and married people with kids are older than married people without kids. You can especially see this in church contexts, where "family" (as defined by having children) is sometimes more highly emphasized than in other contexts. So I guess this means that my younger brother is now older than my older brother, or something like that.

Also in the last month, I had the revenge of the chicken pox virus. I had a vague knowledge of this, but now I have more intimate knowledge. Apparently, when you get the chicken pox, you don't actually get rid of the varicella zoster virus. Instead, the virus hangs out in your nervous system, and in most people it just sits there and does nothing. But for reasons that are not understood by the medical community, it is possible for the virus to randomly start doing stuff, causing shingles. Yes, I got shingles. Yes, it's a disease that generally occurs in people 50 and older. No, I don't know why.

The good news is that it wasn't as painful for me as it apparently is for some. I think part of that is simply my age, and that my body is generally more able to deal with things like this. So instead of being a very painful rash, it was a slightly painful but really annoying rash. It took a couple weeks to get over it. There's just a little bit of discoloring on my neck and chest where the rash was, and there's a tiny bit of residual itching.

While I was at the doctor, we also looked at some blood work that was done as a part of the school's wellness program. In the last year, my LDL (bad) cholesterol went from a very healthy 75 to a still-healthy-but-less-so 117. Also, my HDL (good) cholesterol when down from 82 to 50. The actual values are not as concerning as the sizes of the jumps in the given time frame. It is true that, especially in the last 3 months, I've been eating fast food much more often than I used to. But I think I'll blame genetics. (I will have to make some adjustments, but don't think it will be a big deal.)

I'm counting down the weeks until the semester is over. It has been a busy semester, and I'm looking forward to hitting the break. The break will be less busy, but still busy. I'm teaching a new class next semester (differential equations). It's not going to be a hard course to teach, but I do need to make sure I put notes together, pick homework problems, and all that stuff. This is something that, if I can just sit down without having distractions, I could probably push through in relatively short order.

But other than being busy, things are going well on campus. Both transitions of the remediation program have gone through with no problems. I've got that NGA trip to North Carolina in early December. I expect to have some sort of phone conference or something before that, so that I will have an opportunity to meet the other people on the committee, but it's less than a month away and there has been no contact so far.

And then the Joint Meetings in Boston in January. Hmmmm... if I include Thanksgiving and Christmas, that will be four trips in six weeks. I guess things aren't actually ready to slow down just yet. Oh well.

Wait... It's October?

It's a Sunday evening, and I'm just sitting around the house watching TV. It's a good thing.

The school-related workshops are done for now. In mid-September, there was one that was related to retention and diversity. This is one of those things where I think a lot of people make mistakes by conflating and confusing issues. I respect the need to pay attention to diversity, and that it is important to be aware of unintentional messages (such as if all of your advertising only contained white students). But it's another thing to try to pretend that such things are at the root of the problems of racial equity in higher education. Specifically, we were led through a mini-session on looking at a nursing syllabus, and talking about how it's helpful if the syllabus contained quotes from doctors or nurses of different ethnic backgrounds. But to me, that's a bit much. Would students even be able to recognize that the quote is from a particular person? Is it even relevant to the class? And you can put in a lot of energy trying to find such quotes, but even at best the expected return would be extremely minimal.

The next week, I was in Chicago for a Complete College America workshop. It was my first one-day business trip that crossed time zones, and turned out to be a 21 hour day. That trip was a bit more interesting. This was related much more focused on remediation issues. There are some very good ideas floating around, but there are also some things that make me pause for a bit and wonder if it's going too far. There is a constant tension between the idea of making college degrees accessible and the idea that college degrees need to be meaningful.

One of the ideas presented was to create an alternate remediation path for students who are not going into a math intensive field of study. This is a good idea. But the application left something to be desired. The idea was to create a statistics-specific remediation class for students whose college level math class will be statistics. And while this is successful in the sense that the students who are prepped for statistics did well in their statistics class (of course), the speaker also made the off-handed comment that she's not sure whether her students are able to add fractions, and that didn't bother her. At that point, I have to question whether this is a good idea. If you meet someone with a college degree who can't do basic arithmetic, isn't this a problem?

This theme was repeated two weeks later at another workshop in Reno. That conversation was led by someone who was involved in public policy, and his entire perspective was driven by the policy perspective that the goal is to have X people with college degrees in the next Y years. It reminds me of the "No Child Left Behind" goal of having 100% graduation rates for high schools. If the high school diploma is supposed to mean something, then it is necessary for some people to NOT have one. In the same way, we can continue to de-value the college degree by changing our standards simply to attain some sort of numerical goals.

This is very speculative on my part, but if this trend in public policy continues, there's probably going to be an industry formed in the next 20-30 years for certificates that replace the traditional college degree. It's already happening in a number of industries, and I don't see any reason why it won't continue if higher education continues down this path. All it would need is a clear definition of what the certificate would represent, and then the approval of whatever industry is demanding it. I digress...

My next work travel is about two months from now:

http://www.cvent.com/events/state-science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-stem-summit/event-summary-a0eff8ac4aa14fb7891723ab6bbdd96a.aspx

This one is even more closely tied to public policy, so it will be interesting to see whether I'm more encouraged or more frustrated by it. There's so much traveling that I will do this year. In July, I flew home. In August, I drove to Southern California. in September, I flew to Chicago. In October, I flew to Reno. In November, I will fly home. December will be a flight to Durham, NC and also be a flight home. Then January will be a flight to Boston. And who knows whether February will bring any more travel.

The Math 093 modularization project has continued to move forward very well, and I'm getting some interesting data. It has also been significantly easier to track this than I thought it would be, and much easier to make the room rearrangements than I thought it would be. There are some questions about scale, but I think that it will scale just fine, at least over the sizes that I expect to see this system applied.

I'm going to be presenting again at the Joint Meetings in January (which is the aforementioned Boston flight). I've been given the first speaking spot in the session, which I think is a good thing. But more importantly than just giving a 15 minute presentation, I've got to start thinking about a publication. There have been two journals that I've been considering, and there might be a way to get into both of them by presenting different pieces of the information in each one. One of the journals is more math-focused, and I can submit the data regarding the pedagogical aspects of the system. The other one is more general, and I can use that to talk about the structural issues that the system addresses. But there's a way to go between here and there.

We're losing our president at the school:

http://www.lvrj.com/news/nevada-state-college-president-leaving-for-colorado-post-131145518.html

It's a bit sad for us because she was a good leader. We've still got enough people in leadership positions that we can keep moving forward, but it's getting thin (as it is all over campus). So the campus will have to continue to band together to make sure things get done.

Church stuff is still rolling around. We've started a discipleship class that is essentially a small group leader training. It's only been going for two weeks, but it at least gives a focus and direction for us. We're at least having the conversation about discipleship and getting people to start to move towards that goal.

I'm not an elder, and I won't be an elder until we at least have an interim pastor in place, and then I will make a decision whether I want to serve. Part of the problem is that I don't want to be disruptive as a leader. I don't want to commit to a leadership position and find myself in a place where the person I'm serving behind hasn't been given the authority to do the things that need to be done. If the interim pastor is simply a guy who fills the pulpit, I don't think I can be an elder. It would be far too frustrating to be sitting there and watching nothing happen from the leader, and that would be very disruptive to the leadership structures. But if there's a guy there who has a sense of what needs to be done, and is looking for people to step up and help him accomplish those things, I would be all for it. So I'm just going to sit tight for a month or two and support the things that I already support.

We'll see what happens between now and the next time I have time to post something.

The word for the year so far is "busy"

It's week 4 of the semester, and I'm already feeling a bit bogged down. I was at a faculty gathering this weekend, and I commented about things being busier this year. We broke into spontaneous laughter that can only come from a sense of shared experience. The school has continued to grow, but because of the budget, the faculty has not. The good news is that this year the school has decided to put a large investment in growing the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and so next year we will have a significantly larger faculty base. If I remember right (and I might not), I think we were supposed to increase from about 20 faculty to about 30 faculty next year, if all goes well. But that's next year. This year, we're all pushing hard to keep things running. (This was a tough decision from the President to invest in the core curriculum in this manner with the budget that we have. But I think it is grounded in a good vision for the long-term growth of the school as more than just a factory for teachers and nurses.)

Since I'm teaching all three of our "higher level" classes this semester, I'm seeing a lot of the same students often. There's a small cohort of students which I see 5 days a week, and with all of the office visits that they have, I probably see them 3-4 hours a day. It occurred to me that this is probably bad for the students, because they aren't getting enough variety in the perspectives that they encounter. I do things in a certain way, and emphasize certain things, but they need to see it done differently. I think I need to see it done differently, too. In some ways, my understanding of upper level math has become a bit stagnant because I haven't encountered anything new in a while.

Sadly, there's no solution to this problem for this year. Next year, we should have another math faculty for balance -- and my sanity. But that's next year. For now, we're just going to push forward because we don't have much of a choice on the matter.

On top of this, because of my work with the math remediation, I'm not being sent to workshops and that sort of thing all over the place. This Friday, there's a workshop in town. Next Wednesday, there's one in Chicago (and I'm flying out and back on the same day for that one -- if I were not already missing as many classes, I might have left the day before to be there in the morning, but I don't like missing so many classes), and then two weeks later there's one in Reno (another same day trip). This is good for me career-wise because I'm starting to develop a footprint in the conversation. But it also means that more and more is being expected of me.

(This also means I'm going to miss three days of class in the next four weeks, which I think is more than I've ever missed in a single semester, and more days than I missed all of last year! But I see my students so often, maybe they can use a break from me...)

Everything is going well with the remediation program. The part time instructors have bought into the system, which is one of the challenges that we were going to face. The grading is happening at a reasonable pace, which is another hurdle we've crossed. The last big hurdle for this semester (which we have yet to face) is rearranging the students at the end of the first 5-week module. I'm feeling confident that it will go well, but I can be blind-sided by circumstances very easily in this game, so I've got to be ready to come up with quick solutions to problems. If that goes well, then things should be pretty smooth up to the start of next semester, when everyone needs to figure out what class to enroll in.

On the topic of "problems"... church has gotten strange again. Less than 9 months after hiring the new senior pastor, it has been decided that we will not continue to have him as the senior pastor. In some sense there's mutuality, but in another sense it feels like he's taking the blame for things that he simply cannot control. I don't think it's reasonable to think that a church in the position that it was 9 months ago would be expected to suddenly be a healthy, vibrant church. The recovery process is slow, difficult work. The church didn't do much in the way of laying the ground work, which made it much more difficult for the new pastor to get started.

But there's a silver lining to the cloud, because the worship pastor has now taken on the role of discipleship pastor, and it seems like that is starting to move in the right direction. Daniel has gotten involved in that, and I've talked with him often enough about it to have a sense of the direction it's headed, and to feel good that it's a positive development. It's finally something that feels like long-term vision and planning, which moves us away from the event-driven church that we were. Or at least, that's the hope.

I was speaking with one of the elders last weekend, and was asked to fill out the eldership paperwork. This is also an encouraging development, as I've been a bit on the outside of the leadership of the church for a while. About a year ago, when I met with some of the elders to have a vision-type of discussion, it turned into another story about "putting out fires" and being lectured about how I worship and the fact that I wear a t-shirt to church.

(I still wear a t-shirt to church. I guess that might be labeled as open defiance, but I think it simply doesn't matter enough for me to change it. It's clean and presentable, and I'm not in violation of a larger cultural taboo -- though I suppose that some may still think of church as the place where you look and behave in a manner other than you normally do in order to ... ummmm... impress God? Impress other people? I don't really know why dressing up for church was such a big deal. Maybe the internet can be a reliable source of informat... never mind.)

Anyway, I don't know where church is going to be four to six months from now. We'll just have to wait and see (again).

There's a thunder storm rolling through right now. I tried to imagine some sort of interesting metaphor to make of it, but I've got nothing. So I guess it's just going to be a thunder storm, and nothing more.

And I want to try to make baklava again. It's been years since my last attempt, and I'm more competent in the kitchen now than I was back then.

Going... going... gone.

Summer is over.

This last bit of summer was good. I got to go to the 2011 Leadership Summit, and it's been a while since I've been challenged in that sort of way. I've sort of forgotten how it is to sit back and try to take in these types of insights at that pace and in that environment. Michelle Rhee and Cory Booker were interesting political speakers. Steven Furtick gave a pretty entertaining sermon on digging ditches (2 Kings 3). There were others and I feel like I should have more to say, but I don't.

In my last week of summer, I was just getting the last bits of everything ready for the semester. The oversight role that I'm playing in the math remediation required me to have meetings with the PTIs (which I've never done before), but it's turned out to be great and a relatively easy thing to do. I'm surprised at how welcoming they are of direction. Maybe they're used to just being thrown into the middle of something and being forced to figure it out.

Nevada State College is now officially accredited on its own merits, which is a major step for a young institution. Here's an article from the local paper:

http://www.lvrj.com/news/accreditation-is-a-dream-come-true-for-nevada-state-college-127677508.html

Apparently, we came out so strong that we've got the attention of a few of the more established institutions in the commission. So we're all ready to keep pushing forward and making new territory on the educational landscape. I'm hoping that the remedial math program that we've been developing is a part of that.

My first day of classes went pretty well. Coming back after summer always leaves me a little hoarse because I usually don't spend 5 hours a day talking, especially with much of that talking at an elevated volume (classroom volume). I did mess up my first lecture video for Calculus 3. I didn't tell the computer to use the fast encoding method, which meant that I would have had to wait nearly 40 minutes to compress the video. It might have been okay if there were not another class immediately after mine. So that video ended up getting lost. But I fixed it before the afternoon class, and that was the more important class to me.

Getting the modules started wasn't very hard. All of the hard work happened well in advance of today, and the hard work that will happen will first appear on Friday when we try to coordinate a common exam in 5 different classrooms, and then try to make the grading happen in an efficient manner. That's really where I'm going to find out if I've got a good system, a great system, or a terrible system.

Things are church are starting to build up towards another small groups push. There's not a lot of information available yet, but there are events that are being planned, and various types of meetings have happened and will happen. So it's back to another wait-and-see time. I'm hoping to see the leadership of the church coalesce around a clear vision and a clear message, and that they are able to push the message in an effective manner. We've got a prayer meeting this week, and I'm looking forward to hear how they present things.