I need school to start back up again and soon. I'll survive the week it takes until we start on the 15th, but I'm not sure how well I'll survive it. I've survived Snowpocalypse '14 (Do we keep calling them this if we get them like every other year?), but for the most part, its kept me inside and I'm going a little crazy getting bored inside my apartment. On top of that, because I'm on break I have this tendency to be lazy and when I do, the bad habits reappear as idle hands do the devil's work. This has brought me into a little bit of a downward spiral lately. I haven't been real pleased with myself since I'm not accomplishing much. I need to just forget about all of the nothing that I've one lately and focus on what I do well and force myself to be productive each day. At least today was good in that regard as I sludged through a 3 mile run in the soft snow and with dogs abounding. I also got in to campus to knock out all of the syllabi for the coming semester. I do need to double check those against my first draft of schedules though to make sure everything is cohesive. All that's left to prep me for the first week then is updating the moodle pages, making sure I know where my classrooms are and what they're like, as well as actually my prepping my first few lessons. Come next week, I can hopefully say that I've got things turned around.
I do have big plans for this year though. I'm still waiting to hear back from CURM about whether or not I successfully got a mini-grant this year. If not, there's the possibility of applying for a small grant from NASA in connection with work that one of the Physics profs is doing. I'll be traveling quite a bit as well, Lord willing. I've finally decided to head somewhere warm for spring break and this is the first time the main direction I'll be traveling is south and it only took 14 spring breaks for me to figure it out. I've booked a vacation in Puerto Rico and it should be fun. Along with that, I should be going out to Vegas/Utah for a lot of hiking in May; hopefully getting back to the Pacific Northwest in August; and there is the same cabin as last year in August as well. I've picked up an extra class this semester as well as three classes in the summer to help finance all of this. The other decision I've made is that I need to get back into actual research. Hopefully I can get a grant through AU to fund some research in the summer with some trips to Lansing to work with Andrew again. All of that would actually have to occur in the spring as I think Andrew will be back in Korea for the summer again. This would give me another reason to focus on something other than my classes over the summer though. Combining those last two thoughts, East Lansing is going to get lonely for me come this summer. My old roommate Luke is graduating as well as Richard and Adam and pretty much everyone else I still know in the math department. EL may mostly consist now of Andrew, Steph and Coop and Steph's in a serious relationship as well. I guess that means I've got to find more stuff to do out here in Indiana. At least I found a game group that meets once a month in Muncie so at least that's something.
No comments:
Post a Comment