The weather is starting to cool off a bit. The high hasn't been in the triple digits for a couple weeks, and I think we've finally hit that point where it's not going back until next year.
The cooler weather does open up all sorts of possibilities for how we try to spend time with Hannah on the weekends. We've done some short walks around the neighborhood and one short walk out at Cornerstone Park, but they are all very short trips because of the heat. There are some other places that we would like to walk with her, like Wetlands Park and Springs Preserve. Maybe even Gilcrease, though that might be better when she's a little bit older. And so those opportunities are coming.
In terms of developmental milestones, she's now getting up only once or twice a night, which is a very good thing. She's holding her head up high during tummy time and is able to look around and focus on things going on around her. She's starting to grasp at things to manipulate them (but doesn't have a lot of hand strength yet). SHe also making some proto-crawling movements, but I'm not really anticipating that she's physically ready for crawling just yet. She's up to about 12 pounds and is just about to outgrow her newborn clothes. She's making vocal noises, but isn't babbling.
Work stuff is going well. My MATH 125 course has gone pretty well so far. I still have the usual mix of some students that are really starting to get the ideas and others that are just kind of drifting around. But the class is fun to interact with, and I don't have a sense that I'm going too fast for them or anything. This coming week we're going to really dip our toes into the programming stuff, and it will be very interesting to see how that goes for them.
The MATH 181 course feels like it's in a solid place. We're coming up on the first exam this week, so we'll see if things are sticking for them. This is the first time we've had two sections of calculus, and we're doing coordinated exams with it. I wrote up a test bank of problems from my past times teaching the course, and then the other instructor added a few more and then picked out problems to be the exam.
I've been trying to keep my other work stuff to a minimum, which of course means that I'm doing a bunch of other work stuff. I'm on the dining services committee, and we're looking at trying to reorient the entire dining services to better function as a part of campus. Right now, it's kind of a directionless mess, but we'll hopefully be able to get it back on track (possibly switching vendors). I'm on the departmental promotion and tenure committee with a couple dossiers to review. I've got to really start getting notes together for the physics for creatives course that is scheduled to run next Fall. This will take longer than the math materials because while I know the physics, I don't have as much experience teaching it, and so I'm going to rely on a lot of open source materials. I've got the Test Tube Suspender Amazon listing on the back burner as something to think about. Then there's also the idea of automated advising for math students through writing email scripts and things, but that one is definitely off in the distance somewhere.
The electronics components have been all sorted and organized to my liking, and I've already built up a proof-of-concept project. I have a working prototype of a miniature Stacker arcade game. I have the vision of building it and putting it out in the lobby somewhere, and then using it for advertising for an interdisciplinary maker skills course that is starting to bounce around right now.
The YouTube channel hasn't had anything new in a while, but it recently crossed 1500 subscribers. I thought I was going to release some stuff on mental arithmetic, but looking back at the videos right now, I don't like the pacing and I think I need to rethink the approach. But rather than doing that, I'm thinking more about doing some Putnam problem solutions. But it won't just be presenting the solution. It will be talking about how one might find their way to the solution, which I think is an area that currently lacks a lot of material. There are lots of videos that present solutions to problems, but it's very often presented as "Here's the answer" without necessarily giving any insight into the problem-solving process. So that's where I think I'm going to camp out for the next set of videos. I've worked through how I want to do a couple problems, but I haven't put any work into the actual production piece.
I guess those are the big things. Here are the little things: Thor is doing well. I feel like he's getting a bit more aggressive in getting attention. Sometimes at night, the instant I sit down on the bed, he's jumping up and looking for a lap. Piano is mostly untouched, but I did do a couple things with it. The ukulele has gotten a little bit of action from trying to do some music time with Hannah. I have a new laptop because the other one sustained some damage and is about 5-6 years old. I have a gigantic binder that represents the completed estate planning process. But I still need to do paperwork with banks and other institutions to move things into that trust. So that's stuff to do.
