The First Weak of the Semester

Hello all of you faithful blog readers.

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. Hopefully as the semester progresses I'll get in to a more consistent schedule, which will help me to post at more or less regular intervals.

I guess that my last post left off just as I had arrived back in Lincoln last Thursday. I should mention that Friday was my birthday, which means that I am now 2^5 years old - a pleasant age, and not just mathematically speaking. By the time my age is one again a power of two, I will have almost reached retirement age, assuming I make it that long - plus even if I do, I don't ever plan to retire. I may change vocations later in life, but as long as I am physically able, I plan to work to contribute to society and to build the kingdom in some way. Life is too precious of a gift to waste it on retirement.

As always, my birthday fell smack dab in the middle of the week before classes. But, this was less of an inconvenience than usual. For the first time since I have been back in graduate school, I didn't have to spend my entire birthday in all day TA orientation meetings. Since I am not teaching since I am on fellowship this semester, and since I already did my time running orientations for younger incoming TA's, all I had to do was go to the 1-1/2 hour general department meeting after lunch. So, for the first time in 7 years I got to sleep in on my birthday, and for the first time in 7 years, I got to spend part of the day with family.

Those of you who have read my previous posts know that my parents recently bought an RV. Well they loaded 'er up and drove out to Lincoln (they were actually on their way to Minneapolis for a big 50th birthday party for my mom's sister). They times things out so that they arrived on my birthday, and we spent the evening together. My folks have only been to Lincoln once before since I started school here, and when they were here last, they got hooked on Lazlo's. So, we decided to go there for dinner. If they were open for breakfast, I bet my stepdad would have tried to get up and go again before they got back on the road.

All in all it was a good birthday.

Since then, it has been a bit of a weird start to the semester. I'm not doing Nav staff or LESTER this year, so the first weekend it was strange not to do saturday workshops and Big Red Welcome recruiting. And since I am not teaching and not taking any classroom courses (I'm only registered for dissertation hours this semester), it has been strange not having classes to attend or lessons to prep, or student's names to learn, or papers to grade. Don't get me wrong, I still have plenty to do. But I'm used to a certain rythm of life and activities, and this semester is going to be very different. I am going to have to have a lot more self-discipline, as there is very little outside accountability on the things that I need to be accomplishing with my time and energy - which is good. This is an area that I could stand to build more character in. I have always been one who responds better when there is external pressure, or visible consequences for failing to get things done. But I aspire to be one who is internally motivated, and who is consistent about living right and doing right regardless of the external.

I think I eased into the semester a bit too much to start with. It was hard to get back into the swing of things after being away for a month. Honestly I felt like I was going through culture shock my first 3-4 days back in town. Hopefully next week will be a good productive week.

This weekend, I'll be driving up to Minnesota to visit with family - I'm getting a lot of family time in this month. My sister from London flew in earlier this week and will be here until early next week. I haven't seen her for 5 years, and I'll be meeting by 4 year old niece Annoushka for the first time as well. i'll also be reconnecting with a lot of extended family that have been off the radar screen for several years as well. Please pray for my drive up there and back (my car's been fantabulous, but it is about 20 years old and has 221,000 miles on it), and for good time with family.

I'd better sign off - my friend Chuck and I were supposed to go to dinner 10 minutes ago, and I think he is ready to gnaw my right arm off...