Two and a half weeks until finals! Summer session always goes by very fast. If I'm really on top of things, I might even have the final exam ready by the end of the week. But more likely, it's going to spill into next week a little bit. I haven't been nearly as efficient as I have wanted to be, partly because of some general fatigue. I've been kind of tired (and hungry and thirsty) this last week, but I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's just because we've hit the transition to the desert summer weather, and my body isn't happy about it. According to weather.com, the high on May 23 was 62 degrees, and the high on June 6 (two weeks later) was 108 degrees.
I'm making good progress on the miscellaneous sorts of tasks that I'm supposed to be getting done at school. I got an ISBN for my new textbook, and the bookstore is now arranging the delivery of my textbook for the Fall semester (in other words, my work with that is done... until the next time I need to make revisions). I've gotten a lot of stuff organized for the modularized math remediation. I'm hoping to have the first module completely done (diagnostic tests and all) sometime in the next couple weeks. I'm slowly compiling my third year review portfolio. I've gotten a lot of my writing done, which is the most difficult part. Everything else is gathering up documents, which is easy but time consuming. Also, I've got a math article that I've been working on with Jason that I hope to finish before the end of the summer. I've put the actuary stuff to the side for a while. I've just got too many other things going on right now. But I've got my notes and a couple practice exams, so I should be able to pick it up again relatively quickly once I have the time.
In the church-world, I wasn't nominated to be an elder, which is a bit of a relief because it means I don't have to make a tough decision. A friend asked, "How did you manage to dodge that bullet?" I don't know. I'm not even sure how the nomination process went forward. We're supposed to vote to affirm the elders next Sunday, but I don't even know who they are yet. I would say it's odd, except that coming from our church it really isn't. I have no idea why it was believed that we needed to fill up the elder positions in two weeks' time, and it's starting to look like the mysterious "them" are making decisions again. (That's not speaking to some sort of conspiracy, but rather that decisions get made but nobody can ever seem to trace back the decision to any particular person or persons. There really isn't a functional accountability system in place, so things just sort of happen.)
Instead of dumping time into whatever it is that the Elders are going to end up doing, I'm going to help launch a Sunday morning adult Bible study class during the second hour. We're moving to a single worship service this coming Sunday, and then this class is scheduled to launch a couple weeks from now. I'm not sure how much of a reception it will get, since our church is notorious for being a one hour church, but I'm hopeful that we can get at least a small core of people who are looking for more from their church besides an hour of pew sitting. The material is going to be missions-focused, which is a healthy thing for a church that needs to broaden its focus a bit. So we'll see how that launch goes.
In the "things that very few other people would do" category: I was walking down the frozen food section of the grocery store when I saw a package of frozen, sliced beef liver for about $2. Feeling adventurous, I picked it up and put it in my basket. Without consulting any recipes (what fun would that be?), I dredged the liver in flour and pan-fried it, sauteed some onions, and made a light gravy (butter, flour, and canned beef broth), and called it liver and onions. I've never had liver and onions before, so I don't really have a baseline comparison.
It tasted like... liver... and onions. It had a stronger taste than chicken liver, but it was still liver-y tasting. Somewhere in my memory, I recalled seeing liver soaking in milk, but I didn't do that. I believe it's supposed to soften the flavor a bit. (If I did it again, I would milk-soak them to see if I could notice a difference.) I guess I'm slowly working my way around the beef critter. Besides the usual muscle pieces, I've now made tongue and liver. I guess tripe is the next logical place to go (if there is a logic to it), but I'm going to research that one before diving in because I really have no clue at all what to do. In the back of my mind, I seem to remember some sort of pickled tripe or tripe salad from a Chinese banquet, but I have no idea if I'm just making that up.
