Everything is going well on campus. My classes all seem to be pretty good, though I have a little bit of a worry about my Math 128 class. Some of them seem a little underprepared and it's a small class. It's not as if it's going to get canceled, but I'm more worried about having to drag students along as we get further into the semester. Hopefully, they'll come around.
I recently finished reading "Marley & Me" by John Grogan. It's a story about the relationship between John and his dog, and the real-life adventures they went through. It's a very nice read. I don't think I've read a book like this in a long while.
We've started playing weekly games, which has been fun. I think we're starting to form a nice small core of people who are consistently there, and maybe over time we will get more people and have to break up into two games.
I haven't had a chance to talk with Jack about how we were going to move forward with a small group. He mentioned that a friend of a friend sort of relationship has led him to another student at the school, but it's not yet clear what is going on with that.
I picked up a short-term gig working with a local middle school. There was a grant that another person on campus received, and she had some leftover funds that she wanted to use (instead of letting it drift back into the system). So I picked up 30 hours of meetings and observations (which have already started). It's quite interesting being in a middle school classroom. There was a fire drill last time I was there, which was fun. The drill was far more organized and faster than any fire drill I remember from my student days. Apparently, they got everyone out and lined up in under 3 minutes. That's pretty impressive.
I'm also working with a student on a research project which we hope will be presented at the joint meetings next January. They will be held in DC, which (now that I think about it) will be buzzing because of the inauguration about 2 weeks after. This year's student is going to be significantly more reliable than last year's, but she's also a very high stress person and I hope she doesn't break herself before (or after) the meetings.
Jason has pointed out that there is an upcoming backgammon tournament (http://www.nvbg.com/). He thinks I'm +EV (profitable) in the beginner's tournament, but in order to play I need to find someone to cover my classes (because it starts midafternoon on Thursday and goes over the weekend). I want to play, but I have to justify it to myself that it's both worth my time/money, but also worth harrassing someone into covering for me. I want to play a couple times at the club to get comfortable playing other people who I don't know (and learn the procedures). I also want to see how I match up against those players, and I should probably start tracking my matches against GNU more closely.
