Next week is the last week of the semester. I've basically got a mountain of grading standing between me and being done with this semester. If I could, I'd start grading the final exams now, but I can't. They haven't taken them yet.
I think I almost killed my Math 128 class. They were all completely distraught with the results of their last midterm. I've always taken the hard line of not lowering standards, especially in classes that lead to future classes like PRE-calculus. This means that I drive them hard all semester long with a steady, relentless pace. I sort of consider it to be coddling weakness if I don't let them know what is required of them and stick with it. All I do is make their calculus class that much harder. I feel the same way about Math 097 and Math 093.
I came in second place this week at the backgammon club. I pulled out a miracle win and then proceeded to roll really well to take me to the end. I lost in the finals on a thin-lookimg take at about 12:15 AM (the tournament started at 7:00). I was a little surprised at how much mental fatigue kicked in on me, and I suppose it's because it's the end of the semester because I feel like I should be able to focus for that long.
I had another night of vision-forming at church. I'm going to miss tomorrow session because of the Putnam, but that's okay. Tonight was less intellectually rigorous and more inspiring as we finalized core values and mission/vision statements. When I came here last year, I was mostly excited about the prospect of getting in on the ground floor of the campus, and being able to influence the institution before it gets too institutionalized. Now I find myself in a similar position at church. It sounds like whatever happened before I got there really brought a lot of things at the church to a stop, and now it looks like it's getting ready to start up in a new direction.
There were a couple "what ifs" that caught my attention tonight. What if Las Vegas were actually transformed by God? What would it look like? It's hard to wrap my mind around that one. I don't think I have a good big picture vision for the area. However, smaller ideas that got floated out were the ideas of literacy programs, debt management programs, and other things that address the true needs of the area. Debt management was something I talked with Pastor Scott about a few times while I was in San Diego. I can see these things being valued by the community and having a true impact on the area.
