Another year...

And another failed Christmas letter. But at least this year, I tried. I might even try to finish it up and send it out late (better late than never?). Why am I making a note here instead of writing that Christmas letter? Good question. I'm not really sure. Maybe it's because I feel a deep sense of inadequacy when I compare my plain-text draft of a letter with the richly colored and elaborately decorated letters that people send me. Or maybe it's just because I just want to ramble for a while and that's much easier than trying to put together a more formal letter. Either way, the Christmas letter isn't getting done right now.

I'm sort of in a pensive mood right now. It's probably because another year has just about come to its conclusion, and throwing away my old calendar makes me feel that way. It's definitely been a good year for me, filled with much newness.

I bought the most expensive thing I've ever bought in my entire life. My house is a nice place to live, in a nice neighborhood, located a nice distance from work and other things. I've been told I need to work on the interior decorating (what's wrong with blank white walls?), but not before I get a grill. This has been a great experience for me, if for nothing else than it gives me a sense of grounding in one place. When I was a student, I felt myself as being somewhat transient because I knew that when I graduated, I was very likely going to go somewhere else. When I lived in an apartment out here for two years, I always felt as if that was not home because I was going to move somewhere else eventually. So in some sense, I spent 11 years drifting about, and it's good to be "home."

Even though this house is probably not my "forever" home, there's an "indefiniteness" about home ownership that makes it feel different. I guess this is what Suze Orman is talking about when she talks about owning a home outright gives a sense of security. Of course, I don't own it outright, and probably won't for quite some time (or perhaps ever, if I move before I pay it off).

(In that half-written Christmas letter, I also pointed out that I've had the new experience of getting into a fight with an HOA. But I don't have anything else to say about that one.)

I've had the new experience of preaching. Only once, but apparently it had a decent impact on people. I got an email from the church office yesterday to tell me that someone who claims to be a pastor from around here heard the sermon and wants to get in contact with me. It's very weird to me. I haven't figured out what church this guy is from, and I haven't decided whether to follow-up on it or just shrug it off.

On the topic of church, there have been a lot of new experiences (both good and bad) that I've had through the church. I never believed that churches were always supposed to be a nice and sanitized place to be, but I guess I've been exposed to how messy things can really get sometimes. But I know that challenges cause growth, and I think I've started to learn a bit more about myself that I may not have discovered otherwise.

I know A LOT more people at church now, some of whom are becoming good friends. This is one thing about Las Vegas that I was told when I arrived and have found to be true. It's not that easy to get to know people out here. The pace of life and the lifestyles people have can make it difficult to get to know people well. Everyone is generally sort of isolated from everyone else because that's what "normal" looks like out here. Hopefully that will change. I know that it's an ongoing effort of many groups to create a sense of "community" here. This is something that we try to do on campus.

Using that as a smooth transition to work, there have been new things there as well. I've written a 500-something page textbook in the last year, which is a new thing. I'm still in the revision process, as there are a number of things I want to add and a few other things to clean up. This has been a different sort of challenge. I've never really had a grueling writing process. Even my PhD thesis was "easy" when it came to actually writing it out (the work was hard, but that was a separate process than the actual writing).

There are a number of other little things that were new this year at work. I've got a couple web-based programming challenges that I've started to work on, I've got some more committee-driven experiences, and I'm starting to feel as if I'm becoming more influential within our school. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that it will lead to more work.

I'm done rambling. And if you read all of that, sorry for taking up so much of your time. You probably won't be getting a Christmas letter this year. Maybe next year.

Have a Happy New Year!

Busy weeks

It's been a busy three weeks, and I'm actually taking the time to type this up as a break from taking care of some other work that needs to get done.

The first week back from Thanksgiving was the last week of class before finals. There's usually not a lot of work to do that week, but I spent the time updating my textbook and adding in some more sections (which I think are necessary).

Then the next week was all about finals and grading. This is always a tiring time. The tests went out on Wednesday and Thursday, and then I took almost a full day on Friday and Saturday, and then a couple more hours on Sunday to power through the stack.

This past week was supposed to be one that was a little more relaxed, but things came up and so I haven't really hit the brakes yet. I reworked our placement exam, added a couple more sections to the textbook, worked on some promotion standards, and a few other little things.

But most of my time and energy has been consumed with church stuff. We had a pastor candidate process that imploded. It's impossible for that to happen without there being a mess, but in some sense it's a good mess. Yes, people are hurt, angry (very angry), frustrated, and disappointed, but these are things that can be an instigator of tremendous growth. So we're going to deal with it (what choice do we have?) and see where we end up.

While all this is going on, I've been involved in the elder training process. It's good because I'm starting to get a sense of the different perspectives and personalities of the other elders, and (especially with the current assignment I'm working on) it is forcing me to go back through the scriptures and remind myself of things that I already know but could use some refreshing. It has been a while since I've dug around the Bible like this.

I still haven't gotten out to play poker. I guess I could still go out tonight, but I woke up somewhat early this morning and I'm feeling a little bit too tired to go play. If my brain really isn't with me, I'm not going to play. It's a simple rule that keeps me out of trouble. I probably won't have time to go until I get back after Christmas.