It's weird to me that it's already been a month since the last time I slowed down to write one of these things. It's this strange tension between all the things that are happening in the world and the repetition that my daily life has more or less become.
Although I'm technically still not on sabbatical, I've basically been on sabbatical for the last month. And it really shows. I've been losing track of simple things like "What day is today?" I think I need to build a slightly stronger routine than my current one. I wake up at around 7:30 or 8:00 and do some reading in bed for 30-45 minutes (sometimes a book, sometimes news, sometimes data stuff that I want to read), then I get out of bed and wander to the office to work on some curriculum stuff for the math program (discussed below), then sometimes between 11 and 12, I'll get dressed, go to the kitchen, and eat lunch. After lunch, I work on data stuff until about 5 or 6 (though not straight through, which is part of my problem). Then I'll cook/reheat food for dinner, take a walk around sunset, play with Thor, and start to wind down for bed. And that's pretty much every day.
My morning reading has been mostly working my way through "Longing for Revival" by James Choung and Ryan Pfeiffer. I know both of these guys a little bit. I went to GCF at UC San Diego with James' wife, and I've had a few chances to meet Ryan briefly in a couple different contexts. It's an interesting read, mostly because the language of "revival" is not something that's part of my Christian lexicon, and it's not a concept that I have ever really carried around. However, given the current state of things in the US, it's maybe not a bad word to be holding onto. The book is very clear in its intention, that it's not about "making" a revival, but rather understanding the pattern of revival and placing oneself in position to step into it if it were to happen.
As I said, it's definitely not something that I've really seen as part of my own faith, but it did actually happen "around" me when I was at UC San Diego. The undergraduate group there went from being relatively small to a massive movement over the period of a few years. And I remember hearing about it, and even talking with some of the undergraduate staff at different moments in it. The grad group underwent a parallel transformation, as it was only about 4 people two years before I got there, and then by my second year it was something like 30 people. But it didn't really feel like "revival" to me as I was experiencing it. But from the larger context, it might be considered to be a part of one. I don't know. It's just stuff I'm thinking about.
Some of my other reading has been a lot of news. Not just in the morning, but throughout the day. The last three months have been a crazy news roller coaster that I've been trying to keep up with. It started with moving classes online, then people protesting social distancing, then George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery happening in a span of a few days, then protests, then riots, and then the lifting of social distancing in places, and now we're at the start of what some might call a second wave of infections (though others are just saying it's a continuation of the first wave because things never really slowed down). There's a ton to say there in terms of my thoughts about all of it, from structural inequities built around race and the perversion of justice, to the pandemic and the way of selfishness is at the heart of a lot of bad decisions, to watching how different churches tried to navigate all the things. It's just been a really challenging time to try to take it all in and think about it. I don't really want to spend a couple hours trying to boil down all of those thoughts into a few pithy bits and pieces. So I'm just going to pass for now, and maybe it will come out later.
The curriculum is going well. I'm getting very near the end of that work. If I'm able to push hard, I could be done in a week. If not, then two weeks. I'm looking forward to this as kind of the culmination of multiple attempts to really condense what remedial mathematics for college students should really look like, and I think it might be ready to really try to push it out there. My end goal at this point would be to get it approved as an open textbook (ie, free materials) that are endorsed by the American Institute of Mathematics, to have it put together as a website, including videos, and then sell them on a print-on-demand basis. It's a pretty hefty lift to get things there, and so I don't know if I'll actually make it. But I think it's worth a try.
I had been reading through "Data Science From Scratch" over most of the last month, but that has now stopped because I've started my MIS 766 (Databases) course at UNLV. It's normally an in-person course, but it got moved online because of COVID. I'm definitely glad that it's online for health reasons, but it does cause me to miss the interpersonal interactions that I was hoping for. I'm already almost 20% through the course (5 weeks), which is itself kind of weird. I spent so much time as a student going through on a quarter system (10 weeks) that semesters felt slow for the longest time for me. And now I'm blitzing through a class in 5 weeks. Fortunately, I have some database experience, and so it's not too difficult, but I still put in 3-4 hours a day between watching the class videos, doing the readings, and doing the work.
I'm starting into an interesting bioinformatics project. There's a program called QIIME2 that one of my colleagues is interested in learning, and I'm going along with it because I think that my place within the growing data science program at NSC could be to help bridge that science gap. And so I'm giving it a try. I've installed everything on one of my work computers that I can remote into, and now I'm going to have to work through some tutorials and such to get familiar before trying my hand with some real data. I'm a little worried that my biology background may be too deficient to understand what I'm doing, but I know where I can go to get help if I need it.
I've done some other data stuff, but it was more in the realm of visualization and not analysis. I put together a Javascript program that takes the New York Times COVID data and makes it so that you can look at the data from individual counties quickly and easily. I've also got it smoothing out the data so that you don't get the artificial spikes from data not being reported on the weekends in some locations. It was fairly late in the game in terms of these types of visualizations, as various organizations have their own versions of the same thing, and often more robust. But mine is fast. I've idled away some time just picking random counties across the nation (Maricopa County, Arizona looks like a real mess right now). And I do check in every few days for myself, as I want to make good decisions with regards to how I move about in Las Vegas. Casinos opened on June 4, and so it's still going to be about another couple weeks before we can see how the case load is changing. But based on what's happening elsewhere, there's not a lot of reason to be optimistic that this is just going to blow over.
On that note, my church is starting to meet in person again. We're going to be meeting on Saturday nights because we normally meet in a school and the schools are still completely shut down. But we found another church that is letting us use their space on Saturday nights. But I won't be there. The church is small enough that I'm not overly concerned that it will be a source of spread, but it feels principled to sit out for at least a little while longer. I've said it many times to different people, I'm not in a race to get into a confined space with a lot of people. From a risk perspective, church behaviors are very good for the spread of COVID. Things like singing leads to the increased of projection of droplets relative to normal talking, the number of people is large enough to be a concern, and the amount of time (75-90 minutes) is long enough to enough for a sick individual to build up a significant viral load around them. It's all the bad things put together.
I've also been working with Dave to work on helping AIL reposition the organization a bit to take its next step as he starts to pass off the reins of the organization to the next generation. It's been an interesting experience working through "Building a Story Brand" with him and a few other guys. I like the dynamic of the group, as we all bring different things to the table. I like that it's given me a new framework for some strategic business-style thinking, because it's something that I don't have a lot of experience with.
I'm still printing facemasks, but that project is winding down. It's been a good experience to have, even if it's a fairly passive work. I've gotten more hands-on 3D printing experience, including a lot more troubleshooting experience with the printers. By the time we get to the end, as a team we will have printed over 1000 pieces, which includes enough to make about 500 masks.
Thor has been doing really well in the last month. He's very consistently in bed with me when I'm sleeping now, and is actively seeking attention in that type of a space. I'm at a point where I feel that I could pick him up and move him to the cat carrier without too much hassle. I really need to get him to a vet to get a check-up. I've got a few recommendations from people that I need to follow-up with and start that process. I really don't know how quickly I'll be able to get an appointment right now, but it's not like Thor is old or has medical issues that I need to be worried about. I just need to take those steps.
Miscellaneous other things: Piano? Maybe 5 minutes in the last month. I'm going to keep dangling that in front of myself even if I never actually get back to it. I want it to happen. Homemade bread? Not really. I've done a flat bread done in a pan that I learned from watching Jacques Pepin. I still have only had one take-out meal during COVID (well, one purchase spread it out over about 3 meals). I'm going to drag that out for as long as I can. I'm sure there's other stuff, but it's past midnight, so it's time for bed.
