The vacation hasn't started, but it's close enough

For the first time since August, I didn't go in to work on a work day. It doesn't mean that I didn't do any work, but it does mean that I didn't do much work. I told the admin last night that I might be in this morning for just a couple hours, and she told me not to show up at all. I was at Fry's to buy some electronics components for my Raspberry Pi, and I happened into an aisle that contained plastic spools for a 3D printer, so I asked her to do a quick price comparison to see if we couldn't save a few bucks on our next purchase. Her response ended with "Stop thinking about work." I'm not good at following instructions sometimes. I'm planning to go in on Monday before officially declaring my holiday (which will run to the end of the week and during which work will still be happening).

The semester has wound down successfully. I think I pushed my real analysis course as hard as I could have without completely breaking them. But they were running on fumes by the end, so I'm going to have to take a step back and reevaluate that one before I teach it next time (which won't be for another year and a half). My multivariable calculus class had slightly weaker students in it, but they kept it together and did well enough.

I've already started into putting my notes together for my one course that I'm teaching next semester. A part of my brain tells me that I should be able to push through that relatively easily since it's only one course to prep, but it seems that with various chair responsibilities to keep track of, it's just not as easy as I think it should be. I'm in a good place with my notes, but I had kind of hoped to be further along. In addition, I still have quite a bit of work left to do on the remedial math re-redesign for Fall 2015.

But before I get to that, I have to put together a departmental budget for the next fiscal year. This has been an interesting experience because it's something that nobody has really done before. We have a new person overseeing the finances on campus, and he's really good about forcing everyone to get onto the same page with the financial systems. The downside of getting everyone on the same page is that we all have to learn a new way of doing business. Fortunately, I have a good admin and a good academic coordinator who is helping this all come together. I consider myself to be financially savvy, but thinking through the rules of corporate budget lines and trying to make sense of expenses that I've never seen or worked with before is really difficult.

I think the most interesting thing I have going on right now is playing around with the idea of a departmental newsletter. At a certain level, it's just a little thing. Maybe an update and an article or two to let people know what's going on. But at another level, this is a big deal because we don't have any communication infrastructure with many of our PTIs. And this is a big problem because it makes it hard for them to know what's going on (especially with changes in expectations or processes), and it makes the already large gap between full time and part time instructors even larger.

In the middle of all of this, our church had our Christmas production. This year, I ran one of the two spotlights. This is how things looked for me:

It was a new and fun experience, but I had all of 3 spots for the entire show, so I spent most of the time just enjoying the show.

I've been part of the planning committee for the InterVarsity faculty retreat next summer. This week was the last of three conference calls (which I missed because of a teaching demo I needed to attend). The theme is "Power" and I'm in the process of reading "Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power" by Andy Crouch. It's been an interesting read so far. The concept of power that's being used feels a bit more abstract than the general sense that I have. I think of power in the context of structures and authority, whereas the concept of power presented in the book seems to be more about power as a gift. I'm not that far into the book yet, so I'm going to have to give it more time before I can feel like I'm starting to wrap my mind around the implications of that position.

I'm making progress with the Raspberry Pi. I can do all sorts of things like log in remotely and make LEDs turn on and off from across the house. I've got in my mind to create a Simon (memory) game to help me gain some semi-practical experience. That's probably going to take about a month or two, depending on how much time I have to put into it.

One thing that might take away some of my time is that I'm considering taking a course in Spanish next semester. I'm expecting to be back in Oaxaca this summer, and it would be good for me to be able to speak better and understand more this time around. The downside is that it's a once-per-week course that runs from 6-10 PM. There are plenty of people who work all day and then go to school at night, but it still adds up to a long day. I'm not going to make my decision just yet, but right now I'd say it's a 60-40 proposition in favor of me taking the class.

I guess that's about it. I'm sure there's other stuff going on that I can come up with if I think about it, but this feels like enough. I might have an end-of-year reflection next time around. Or I might not. I'll decide when I get there.