It's been another couple weeks, and things are still running in overdrive. But I'm still pushing through everything and still moving forward. I intentionally set aside this evening to stop and do this because I've got at least another week of this.
Spanish class continues to go well. I got 60/60 on my first test. But I have to admit that I think I got lucky. The reason is that I know I took a couple guesses on a couple words because I couldn't remember whether there was supposed to be an accent or where that accent belonged. But still, it's nice to know that the test-taking skill that developed over my many years of public school education is still there somewhere. I missed class last week because I was in Monterey. The last week of material was a little bit harder to learn because sitting in class helps (imagine that!). But I should be able to recover.
The NROC conference in Monterey was okay. It wasn't particularly productive in certain senses. Since the Nevada System of Higher Education only formally created its partnership about two weeks before the conference, none of us actually had an opportunity to play with the software before the conference. This meant that all of the ideas were fully in the abstract, which just isn't ideal. But it was at least some level of exposure to ideas and some level of networking that we wouldn't otherwise have had, so I can't say it was completely unproductive, either. We got access to the content late last Friday, so we still really haven't had a chance to dig into it. But at least we're closer now.
The faculty searches are basically over. We got two new biology faculty and we're fully expecting to get our new math faculty candidate. These hires will bring us to a place of basic faculty stability for a while for these two areas. There will be enough faculty to run our degree programs effectively, and we're not expecting to get any more hires in either of these two areas for quite a while. So there's going to be a year for the new faculty to settle in, and then growth will be focused more on the curriculum and program development level, and not so much the personnel level. There will still be faculty growth coming up, but it's going to be in Chemistry and I think that's probably a year or two off. And from there, I have no idea what will happen (and I probably won't be department chair anymore, so I'm moderately confident that the decision-making process for that won't be of any direct concern to me).
I'm still playing around with the robotics stuff. I bought a big collection of switches and sensors, which I got to play around with last weekend. I dismantled my previous robot and rebuilt it this weekend. I needed to simplify the construction a bit and I also needed to have better access to the digital/analog sensor inputs. I've probably got another month or so before I need to make some firm decisions about how I'm going to run the course. But I've got some ideas rolling around my head. Part of what I'm able to do will depend on how much money I have to put into it. I'll hopefully get an answer to that next week, just so that I can start to frame the possibilities in my mind a little more clearly.
I went to the Nevada State robotics championship this afternoon. I was a bit surprised to find out that you jump straight from the state competition to the global competition. I guess this competition is much flatter than I thought it was. I was expecting at least a national competition (though I really expected a regional competition, first). It kind of reminds me of the Science Bowl that I did my senior year of high school. If we had done just a little bit better, we would have jumped straight to the national level. That actually gives me a bit more ambition for this because it means that it's easier to make a big splash.
While I was at the NROC conference, I was able to meet up with my parents to celebrate their 40th anniversary. We went out to a nice dinner, and there was something completely apropos about the fact that we started off at a pretty nice restaurant for dinner and ended up at Coco's for dessert. I think this is the first time I've been around my parents for their anniversary since high school, so that was fun.
We're coming up on a few things at church. The capital campaign is ready for its full launch. The target has been set at $350,000 - $400,000 for a number of important upgrades. The poster child for this is the sound board that is so shaky that we're not turning it off in order to reduce the wear that the equipment experiences due to the surge we get on power-up. There's more to it than that, including some renovations to the main sanctuary and such. The final number seems small, but we're actually getting away with a bit of deal because there are no real structural changes that are going to happen. My initial hesitations have been relieved as more information has come out about it. The focus has included a stronger emphasis on the technical aspects of the upgrade and not just the facade. My focus is still on trying to bring attention to organizational-level changes. I've been having some conversations with people about that, and I'm becoming increasingly confident (albeit slowly) that these changes are on the horizon. They're not close enough to be "around the corner" but I think they're at least in view.
The Oaxaca trip is not too far away. Well, it's still several months away (mid-July), but this is the type of activity that requires a somewhat substantial planning period. The entire process runs on basically a 6-month cycle, starting with the small bulletin announcements to let people know the specific dates and ending at a debriefing after the trip. It's a long, slow arc of events, but trips like this really shouldn't be thrown together at the last minute. (I feel that way about events in general. I like the seamless coordination of communication, planning, and execution. But that's not something that everyone buys into at the same level I do.)
The next couple weeks will (hopefully) bring me to a good resting point. I'm actually in the middle of a transition of types of busy-ness. Before last weekend, everything was high intensity during the week, with lots of meetings, meals, and teaching demos chewing up my time. Starting last weekend, it's more about losing weekends. I lost about half of my weekend due to the NROC conference. This weekend, I had the VeX competition today, and then tomorrow I'm helping out at church early, then to a meeting immediately after the second service, and then meeting up with an old friend (which is a good thing, but it's still a thing on the calendar). This weekend, I'm driving out on Friday night to go to CA for my cousin's wedding. And then I think I get to come up for air after that. At that point, it's the week before Spring Break, which means it's a week before family comes out for a visit. I have no idea what that's going to do for my work productivity, and I'm not really sure if I care.
