The water heater was fixed (replaced) the day after it broke, and so that's all good again. We're now at the end of the second week of classes, everything has fallen back into a normal routine.
My teaching schedule is a little bit different this semester. I've got an 8 AM class M/W/F (my first 8 AM class since my undergraduate days, I think) and a 9:30 AM class on T/Th. But I still have a 3:30-5 class in the afternoon M/T/W/Th. So I'm spending much more time on campus than what I normally do. In some ways it's good, because I have much more time to get stuff done. But on the other hand, the extra time means that the pressure to be time-efficient is diminished, so I'm less efficient.
The math program is not running, but we're still testing some of the content and the format. Things are running pretty well for me. I'm having plenty of time to lecture through the materials and do the in-class content. The other instructor has suggested a change in the test format, and I think it has a good chance of working out well. It will definitely reduce the amount of paper we use, and it may also make the grading more efficient. Now the question is whether the students can follow directions well enough.
My other classes are rolling along smoothly. The history of math class is fun because it's far more relaxed than most of my other upper division courses. I don't feel the same sort of weight of trying to cover specific material, and I feel that I can just talk more casually about stuff. I do need to be careful that I don't get too casual, because that quickly turns into laziness.
We're also moving forward in the hiring process for another math professor. We've got some phone interviews next week, and then we'll have on campus interviews over the next few weeks after that, and then we'll make an offer. We seem to have a batch of candidates that came together quickly for the committee. We now have to wait and see how things go forward from here.
I'm back to playing the letter-writing game regarding my credit. It seems like every 6-8 months or so, something pops up that shouldn't be there. I've got a monitoring service through my insurance company, and it's actually very good because I know usually within a matter of a couple weeks when something new shows up on the report.
Most of the time, I challenge it and it gets removed without any hassle. The last time I had a hassle, I had to contact a credit card company about it. This time, I'm contacting a collections agency. Just for reference, a good thing to know about is the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It's mostly about protecting people from being harassed by collections agencies, and placing boundaries on the types of tactics they can use. For me, the relevant section is section 809, which requires them to produce some form of evidence that I opened the line of credit, and their inability to do so should give me sufficient leverage to get them to pull the claim. Or, if they do produce evidence, it should be something I can take to demonstrate that it was originally fraudulent (I'm less clear on how this process would work, but if I need to figure it out I will).
It's only 10:40 PM, but I'm quite tired. I guess that's what happens when you wake up earlier.
