I just needed to refer to my calendar to figure out what I did last week... Is that bad?

The light at the end of the tunnel is probably about 3 weeks away. At least, I'm hoping the activity will calm down in early April. Not that activity is bad, but it's also good to rest. Actually, taking the time to do this every other week is a time of rest. I started this blog in 2007 to keep track of my adventures in Las Vegas. It's kind of weird to think that I've got over 250 posts since then, and that it was almost 8 years ago when I started this. I really started it as a journal-like exercise in stopping to reflect, and it's still being exactly that. Functionally, the practice of stopping to think and reflect has probably been one of the more valuable mental exercises I've done over the years in terms of keeping my mind clear of clutter and not getting into any extended mental ruts. And some day (not today), I think it will be interesting to read what I've said and see how my life has changed (or discover that my life has remained completely unchanged and that all I do is post the same thing all the time).

Here is how my last few posts have started:

• Feb 4: We're now a couple weeks into the semester, and things are pretty busy. But as I take a step back and look at all that's going on, I find I'm actually doing very well. I don't know how long this elated experience will last, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
• Feb 19: I'm holding up okay for now, but I'm definitely starting to feel the fatigue kick in. I've decided to do this instead of doing Spanish homework tonight because I think my brain just needs to have words squeezed out of it more than it needs to have words squeezed into it.
• Mar 7: 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.

Here I am, two weeks later, and now the light at the end of the tunnel is looking like it's 3 weeks away. How optimistic I was two weeks ago! And how wrong I was! Once again, I'm not putting any time into Spanish tonight so that I can do this bi-weekly brain dump. (Bi-weekly in the every other week sense, not the twice a week sense. There really should be a better word for that.)

At a certain level, I've taken this practice to work with me. When I became Department Chair, I was warned about how much work it was and how much I would be doing. So I created a file in which I summarize my daily activities in a simple list form. I don't really put much time or thought into that list. I just keep the file open in the background and every time I transition from one project to another, I add another item to the list. Or, at least I try to do that. I don't get everything all the time, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting at least 80% of it written down. My grand idea (that I don't know if I will actually accomplish) is that by knowing what I did during my first year on the job, I will be better able to organize my second and third years. But I find it absolutely fascinating how true the warnings were. For example, this is what March 11 looked like:

• Meeting: City Manager of Henderson
• Mini-meeting with Elia (just returned from vacation)
• Math 095M
  • Assign 3-01 to Carissa
  • Make Kristina's 2-07 - 2-10 edits
  • Start making Carissa's edits
• Annual Reviews
• Robotics Course Outline
• Email: Brian Chongtai - Robotics laptops
• Email: Leila - Nepantla planning
• Email: Vu - Annual Review questions
• Conversation: Joey - Lots of things
• Gear ratio demo

The average day appears to have between 8 and 10 bullet points. So this one is pretty typical. And in case you're wondering, I had more than 3 emails that I received and responded to that day. Those were just the ones that somehow involved more time and thought. A quick count reveals that I only had about 20 emails that day (which includes emails that don't really require my attention), so it was actually a somewhat light email day.

The last couple weeks at work were kind of like that, except that there was also some Summer and Fall staffing going on. And March 11 apparently didn't have anything to do with the proof-writing class that I'm teaching (no teaching, no grading, and no students).

I am starting to increase the amount of time I spend planning for this summer robotics course. I'd really like to have 9 students. That seems like a reasonable number because I'll get 3 teams of 3 out of it. I'm making good progress in piecing together a syllabus and schedule, but there's still quite a bit that needs to come together.

This upcoming week will be all about writing annual evaluations. They just take so much longer than I think they should. I've gotten the two shorter and easier portions written up (scholarship and service), and now I just need to power through the teaching section by 9 AM on Friday so that I'm ready for the thing on my calendar labeled "Chair's Meeting - Discussion of Annual Evals." I got through some of the teaching sections last week, but I'm going to have to go back and do some more tweaking. I've got some ideas for making this less difficult next year, but I need to get all the way through this year before I can really start to work on that problem.

Last Monday, I kind of hit a breaking point with Spanish. Right now, it's a period of lots of vocabulary. I'm just memorizing verbs, adjectives, and nouns. It's not going poorly, but I don't feel as though it's going well. It's a good thing that the teacher isn't using a drill-and-kill style of teaching, because otherwise I'd be prone to mentally checking out. She's very upbeat and optimistic with the class, and is at least trying to convince us that we're doing well even though it's clear that many of us don't feel it. I suspect she's right, and that this is just one of those lulls that I've seen so often from the front of the classroom. It just feels very different when you're on the other side of it. But we'll just have to wait and see. I think when we're on the back end of Spring Break, the energy in the classroom will feel a little different.

Last weekend, I was in LA for my cousin's wedding. It was on Pi Day, which makes it easy to remember. And not just any Pi Day, but the only Pi Day this century in which we get the two extra two decimal places of precision. It was a nice wedding and probably the only warehouse wedding I'm likely to attend in my life. Not because it was it was bad in some way, but because I just don't know how many other people I know that would even try to do a warehouse wedding. It was fun to hang out with family for a couple days.

I've got one week until Spring Break, and this Spring Break I'm actually going to take a break to spend a few days with the whole family out here in Las Vegas. It's sort of a half-break, but I'm sure that there will be some type of work building up during that time, which is why I think the light at the end of the tunnel is about 3 weeks away. And at that time, I hope that things return back to a routine type of busy and down from the busy-busy... at least for a little while.