A slight change

9:07 a.m. Well, I'm sitting in the faculty lounge for my department this morning. I'm trying a new schedule to see how things work out. Normally, I'm in the gym right now, sweating on the ski machine with my IPOD. But since it's usually a rush to finish the work out and then run across campus to make copies and review my lecture in a few minutes, I though that I would try heading to the department lounge and take my time to get the morning going. I plan to work out after my afternoon class. I am curious how this will affect my morning class and how it might affect my routine.

So far the place's ben rather empty. Only a few people have even stopped by for a moment and usually they simply smile silently and move on in a vague zombie-like state to get to their office. I meant to catch Sandy this morning to ask her to check on the repairs to the door for my first class; you can only open it from the inside. I've reported it weeks ago but there's still no sign of repairs.

Blah.

Feels weird not to be working out this morning. I almost walked towards the gym and not the admin building by sheer habit when I got out of the car.

Ahh, I hear people rustling out in the hallway. Ok, one person walking in the hall.

Oh yeah, the oddest thing happened Monday in Sociology. One of my students informed me that she was getting divorced from Brandon Hobbes. She had asked me if I knew he and Chris and I told her that I had grown up with them. They have two kids and she's divorcing him in the next few weeks. It's odd to hear anything about those two but even more odd to hear that Brandon got married and fathered two kids. The last I remember seeing him was years ago when he was like 8 or 10.

Yeah, it's a small town.

9:40 a.m. Sandy finally appeared so I could tell her about the problems with the door to my first class and I finished my read through before the class. My stomach is starting to twist into knots for some reason. I think it's probably just sinuses. The weather has turned quite cold and there's every indication that we'll get down to single digits next week. Brr.

Single... Digits...

That just sounds wrong.

So far the responses have been fairly common. I'm the new face and what am I doing around here. I knew that I should have started to hang out in the lounge from the first day to get to know the faculty better. Oh well, it'll work itself out eventually.

I'm trying to waste some time before I head over to my class. The class prior to mine is always late getting out of the room, sometimes holding them past the time they should get out. I never did like professors who did that. The students have other classes to get to even if they don't.

1:08 p.m. Well, I've finished my Soc review and got through this morning's class without any problem. I'm back in the faculty lounge and listening to one of the math professors, a Phillipino woman named Pearl, hum to herself as she warms up a micro-meal.

She seems like a very interesting person; very eager and curious. She's also the only person that has responded to any kind of conversation I've started. Manners. Sheesh.

I think I'm going to wander up to my next class here in a few minutes, but I'm going to swing by and pick up some chips or something to help settle my stomach. It's better than it was this morning but no so great since I am skipping lunch. Maybe I'll pack my lunch next week since I'll be hanging out in the lounge more often for my 2 hours of break. Everything is sort of based on the idea that I get paid for the first time this Friday. According to everyone involved, I should be able to walk down and pick up the first check that morning. The following paychecks will be automatically deposited into my account. I could, and may, have part of it deposited into a seperate account for back up. If I don't have it to spend in the main account, I can always fall back on things.

I've got to get my electric caught up, cable and my cellphone. Ugh. Bills.

1:45 p.m. I'm up in the next class and listening to my students flirt and cajole with each other while attempting to look like they're not interested. It's actually quite funny and if I could record it somehow and play it back as an example of societal norms and the symbolic exchange of non-verbal communication I would. There still a handfull of students who haven't picked up their test from last week. After today, there's a week and then we have the next test.

Tseo says - Brrrrrrr

11:00 a.m. Well, I poked my head up from my computer this morning for a few minutes to grab something to eat. When I looked out of the back window, I saw very little other than a white storm. The snow was coming down pretty heavily and it was sticking.

So I saw my old friend Tseo on his perch in the back yard and decided to grab a pic of him. With the snow accumulating, his perch might become obscured.

Oh well, enough blogging - back to work.

-T

The Aftermath

12:18 p.m.

Well, this morning's class went fairly well. There was a little fizzeling in the material towards the last bit because the students were restless to get their tests. The only student who hadn't taken the test and who had emailed me in advance was there today and while he left to take the test, I handed out the results.

I asked the students if they head read the material before the quiz and everyone raised their hand. I asked them if anyone had ever asked a question in class and only two people could say, consistently, that they had. I encouraged them to alter their thinking and become more involved in the class. I also handed out the review questions and asked them if they would rather have them before the class so they could answer them in advance or on the day of. They voted to get them prior to the class so I'll be turning out two chapters worth of review questions for Wednesday.

I still have to compare the list of students who have taken the test to my class list and see who hasn't taken it all and who didn't email me. They'll get no points at all for the first test and are already at a disadvantage. One of my students asked how many bonus points I'll be giving out throughout the rest of the quarter because she failed this first test and would "hate to be dropped from the dean's list". I don't know if tha twas her pride talking or if she was actually interested in what kind of grade she could pull out of this class.

Now that I'm giving them the review questions for each chapter, there's no excuse about not being ready for the next quiz.

Sigh.

Well, this morning was damn cold and the wind about ripped the skin off me but it looks like it's trying to warm up a little now. I'm sitting in the library and looking out through the big windows to see huge splotches of sunlight across the center of campus.

I have to prepare two chapters for Wednesday and grade the last of this morning's quizes. As far as I remember, there were a few people who hadn't taken the Soc test yet so I'll have to check in with the Success Center before I go to class to grab any last minute tests.

1:05 p.m. I think that I'lll run around campus and get some pics for this blog entry. I've already run the comparison between the grades I have on file and the number of students in my class and 7 students didn't email or show for class. I'm not sure if I should email them or just report them to the department as no-shows after the cut-off date.

I'm so craving a mountain dew or something completely unhealthy right now. Grr.

1:30 p.m. Ok, so I got a Dew. I am pulling a work out 3x a week now. I can afford to have a little evil in my life now. I stopped by the Success Center and found out that my last Psych test was finished and turned in so I can grade it after Soc. I've also got one last student to finish.

Ok, students here.

Arn update

For those of you who are interested, I'm still working on some of my "Chronicles of Arn" stuff over on another blog.

-Tom

Quiz Day

11:00 a.m. I'm sitting in my first class waiting for the last two students to finish their quiz. One of the students came to class 20 minutes late and the other started when everyone else did. It's now 50 minutes into the test and they're the only ones left.

This first quiz is going to let me gauge the student's ability as well as my own teaching performance. If there are a lot of students who didn't perform well, then I'll have to change my teaching style to try and make things more clear to them. I'm also going to toss in some extra credit questions for one of the quizes to come to let people make back some points if they didn't do so great on this first one.

One of the reasons that I didn't mind letting the late student go ahead and start the test was that the roads are pretty bad in town and out in the county because of a late-night snow storm. I've already had two students email me to say that they wouldn't be able to come in because of the weather. One said that she probably wouldn't be in on Monday either because of an illness. I'm going to have to check with my Chair to find out what the department policy is on the length of time someone can put off a test. I can always make up a different version of this quiz that she can make up - since I don't want the students to have to wait for that one last grade to come in.

One down and one to go.

I grabbed my NEC back from when I let a friend borrow it and I'm falling back in love with the thing. Chris had borrowed my folding keyboard a while back (for the PDA) and can't find it now. I kind of like this a bit more. It's not exactly as portabla as the PDA but it's much easier to type on.

12:51 p.m.

I've just graded the psych test. Out of 52 students who took the test, 27 of them got a D or lower. This is after I went through and found that around 5 questions weren't really fair and that I'm not going to be able to use the quiz-maker program again; at least not like I did in the past. There were only 50 questions for the test so I simply doubled their scores to get their final grade. With just doing that, the highest score was just an 80. This is because all of the questions are worth two points. That didn't seem right. So I considered the 5 questions to be my own mistake and awarded each student 10 points, once the scores were doubled to make up for it.

I've just checked and found ou that 5 students didn't show up to take the test and didn't email me prior to class to tell me that they wouldn't be there. I was pretty easy with my lack-of-attendence policy, but if they don't show - it's not my fault.

Heh. I just had two of my Soc students approach me here in the library to ask abou the nature of the test. I told them not to worry; that it's the first test and if things don't work out for the class, I'll grade on the curve (meaning probably assign 10 points). I went through the questions that the test-maker had spit out for me and they didn't look too difficult but I think I'm going to have to either make up my own questions, hand out a pre-test or teach from the tests from now on.

I'll fix it. I don't want my students failing the class for any mistake on my part.

I have one hour until class. I'm mostly bored right now since I've finished with grading the first test. Thankfully, though, I have the NEC with me so I can type away frantically about whatever's crawling through my mind or some odd observations of society or the Shawnee State subculture.

Hrm. Thirsty. BRB.

2:30 pm. I'm all but done with the Soc quiz. There's only three students left. This test went a lot faster than the morning's exam. I wonder if it's my teaching skills. I'm going to go immediately down to the department and grade these quizes to see if there's a big discrepancy in the average grade. I know that I'm probably going to have to alter my teaching style for Psych but I didn't think that there would be much of a problem for Soc. Hopefully, the chair won't have me teach another psych 101 but I get the feeling that it is their normal course to teach so I may have to adapt.

2:37 pm. One student left. When a student takes a really long time I always wonder if it was because they didn't study or if they were hammering over the material that much.

Oh yeah

I meant to post this shot a while back. Every day when I head down to campus to work out or for class, I drive past my old high school.

The city constructed a new facility across the street from the old one over the past few years and it opened this past fall. Back in December, they started to tear it down.

On the way home one day, I paused at the doughnut place to grab this shot.

They are, apparently, going to completely level the place. Rumor on campus suggests that the space left by the school (and the surrounding blocks) will be developed into a new stadium for the school or for the University (or both). I've not really looked into it but I do find it somewhat pleasing that this old edifice is no more.

-T

Snow again

Cookies this weekend (6) Dammit!

Chapters Done (2) Yeah!

Domestic Chores (2) Ugh.

Well, I woke up this morning around 8:30 and heard the cats warbling about something. I figured that they were either out of food or out of water. So I stumbled out of bed and staggered into the kitchen to feed the furry things.

When I got into the kitchen, the snow was visible on the hill but I thought, like most times, it was just a faint dusting and that was it. Once the cats were busily munching on food, I heard the scrape of a plastic shovel and the wish-wish of a broom. I had to investigate.

When I got outside, I saw that it wasn't just a faint dusting. This was at least an inch but no more. So people were out shoveling and sweeping their drives and such and the freezing rain was continuing to add to the mix. So after a brief conversation with the neighbor who was in the middle of his morning, manly duties, I got dressed and started to shovel.

Since I have class tomorrow, I want to make sure that I'm not going to have a problem getting down to campus. Getting the drive shoveled should prevent me getting snowed or iced in - I hope. Also, I don't really want a bunch of kids plagueing my door every hour wanting me to pay them to shovel it for me.

So, now - I'll be getting back to my work. I have a quiz to finish.

-T

One Woman's Crusade

When I heard about some Evangelical Church out in Missouri that was mentioned on CNN or MSNBC for teaching a radical new model of faith, I was a bit curious. Why did this make the news? Evangelical churches are usually considered the most vocal of the new Christian movements since they focus on the process of Evangelizing anyone who doesn't believe as they do.

The Church that was mentioned condemned movies / books like Harry Potter and anything that didn't immediately preach the evils of such topics. Unlike every other Evangelist church, this one focuses on turning out "children who are as radical about the gospels as those kids (of Islam who are blowing themselves up)."

So I found the movie, "Jesus Camp" which is a one hour documentary about their movement and watched it to get more of a complete picture. I was surprised. As much as I thought I knew what the Evangelical 'pulse' was, this one woman took things and ran back to the Witch Hunts. So, I watched it a few more times and picked up the most disturbing points that jumped out at me and cut them together using the cheapo movie maker program.


This is one woman's crusade. She has found others to help her convince the children around her community that not only need they repent and be washed of their sins (what sins could an 8 year old have? and be held accountable for?) but also become "soldiers of god".

I would like to say that I'm not an alarmist but with her message gaining strength with each year and with eacy summer camp they hold, it is assumed that before she might lose her steam - someone else might pick up her crusade and continue. The crusade to turn small children into religious zealots, red-faced with tears and crying because they must repent their sins and live only for their god IS alarming. Her own concern that Christianity (the Evangelical movement) doesn't have its own martyrs like Islam is disturbing. Though I'm sure that her press coordinator would argue that her words were misinterpreted or that her message was being perverted by a Liberal's adgenda - it really sounds like she's wanting the kids she's training (conditioning) to push themselves to the level of the Muslim Extremists.

If it didn't work out so well for the Middle East, why would it work any better here? It sounds like she's calling for an American Intifada. She focuses the kids on politics and the law - they routinely praise cardboard cut-outs of the current President Bush - thanking him for bringing the Evangelical message into the political landscape of America. She would have the politicians and the police to enforce scriptural law. In Saudi Arabia they have a word for that - it's called the Matawwa - the Religious police.

One Woman's Crusade. One People's Crusade. One step backwards towards the return of the condemnation of Heretics and Blasphemers. One small step to the right and a strict adoption of fanatical religious fundamentalism.

I normally urge people to continue their personal quests - to continually strive for their goals. However, with this blog I'm going to borrow the maxim of my friend and former Master and say:

Be mindful and awake

-T

Always the Quest

My friends will know that I have used the phrase, "Always the Quest" to embody my continual search for answers. Recently, a friend of mine - who had lost contact with me - did a search for that phrase to see if he could find an email address. Once I heard about this, I had to repeat the search to see what I would come up with. One of the links took me to a Navy Seals Workout site.

As a Navy SEAL Instructor I lead daily PT for almost 12 years. Each day I did my best to switch things up to keep things interesting and motivating. I do the same thing in the workouts that I have provided for you the Americian Public. Promoting fitness is my passion, it is what I am meant to do. My goal is to teach as many people as possible that your body is your gym. As long as have yourself you will always have your gym.

Always the quest,

Scott Helvenston

So I think it was interesting that a Navy Seal and a company who helped people with losing weight chose to use the same quote and probably for the same reasons.

Lonely Road

Pilgrim's Promise

I started a new journal today and had to put something on the inside-front cover. The first thing that came to mind was the Pilgrim's Promise. It's something I wrote up a while back.

-T

Professor Riley

Morning Workout: 30 Minutes, Morning Lecture: Completed if a bit of a struggle, People flirting with me: 2 (Hey, it’s a start),

12:18 p.m. Lunch-time. I should pick up some crackers or granola bars or something for me to munch on while I’m in the library; maybe some raisins. My workout this morning was pressed again. I kept looking at my watch when I got on the Mill; I was too worried that I was not going to be able to have enough time to review my notes before class so I headed back to the showers at 9 a.m. I should have kept going until at least 9:15 at least. That would still give me plenty of time for a workout and time to review my notes.

I didn’t get out of the house until around 8:30 this morning; though I was up a little before 8. I figure that 8:30 is probably going to be my normal time to start working out. I know that I can’t work my legs too much in the morning because I’ll be jello standing in front of my students if I push them too hard. I may switch out my routine to do the machines on the days that I don’t have class and then work on my upper body on Monday and Wednesday. That way all I’ll have to worry about is not being able to lift my arms rather than not being able to stand.

I met Mike Eldridge again in the hallway. He was leaving class while I was waiting for my room to open up. He asked what I was up to and I told him that I was teaching here and that I was, at the time, trying to get my calf muscles to relax after that morning’s workout. He smiled and said that he needed to work out and start dropping the weight he had put on after high school. I was going to invite him along to work out, but we were interrupted by someone calling me “Professor Riley”.

God, that felt good.

He won’t be in any of my classes, according to him, though he might try and take Anthropology sometime. It would be interesting to get to know him again – now that we’re different people and out of High School. Eh, who knows what could happen. Becoming friends when once I almost considered him an enemy – one of the nameless masses that didn’t actively persecute me, but also didn’t attempt to get to know me either.

I am seriously considering getting a new laptop. Nothing expensive, mind you, just something small that I can haul with me back and forth to campus for work. I’ve found a few on Dell’s website that are around $700.00 – probably notebooks built for a Christmas special and they’re trying to get rid of them now. I’ve yet to get paid from SSU but I did find out that I don’t get paid for holidays. I’m not sure how that works since I have a contract for a set amount of money. I may swing by Payroll before class to ask them when the first paycheck will be deposited.

Josh had mentioned that I could probably get a micro-loan from his bank to cover the expense of the laptop since I’m hired by the University. My credit is bad after being out of work for so long so I’m not sure if his bank or anyone would be willing to give me a loan for two dollars let alone $800.00. I’ll probably ask National City as well to see what they say so I can get an idea of my chances. If my credit is so bad that I can’t get a loan, I’d rather not have other people know that.

I asked mom about the idea and she thought that it was a good idea and that if it worked and we got it paid off quickly enough that we might be able to get another for her since the laptop I’m on now is falling apart and so old that it’s not really good for anything much more than text-entry and even that is iffy since the ‘a’ key is not wanting to work for me. I have to use some considerable force with my pinky to make sure it’s there.

Josh wanted me to get the laptop, or had urged me to get one, probably so I could play Warcraft with him if I went up to visit. I’m all for enjoying a video game but, ugh. There are limits.

I don’t know how much longer we’ll be hanging out since our differences are becoming more and more prevalent. Now that I’m working at SSU, he said that I’m getting too serious. This coming from a guy who has already admitted to being ‘just a kid’ – still at 23 years old. I swear he reminds me of Robbie sometimes.

But, there might be something new in the works.

Drawings of Da Vinci

I've been interested in Da Vinci's work for a few years now, most notably his notebooks. Recently I found a site that has a great deal of his sketches for you to download so I am posting it here for reference.

1st Day

Well,

Since I can’t connect to the web here in the library for some reason, I’m using MS Word on the laptop to type up a blog entry.

The first class, Psychology, was not too difficult. I only held the students for about a half-hour since it was just the introduction. Most of the students were quiet and disconnected, having no real interest to speak about anything. It’s ok, I’ll get them talking eventually. I could pick up on a bunch of their personalities without much effort but one guy in particular jumped out as someone to watch.

Military people are usually easy for me to spot; especially those in the Army. The guy looked the type, in shape with a short-cropped haircut and he betrayed his training by answering, “roger” to a question I asked. As soon as he did, I asked him what branch and he confirmed my suspicions; he’s a reservist.

The rest of the class were still recouperating from their Christmas break and weren’t exactly on the ball. That was ok, I was so eager that I wanted to get them talking and discussing in-depth topics before I had the attendance counted.

After class, I went back to my car and grabbed my work-out back and headed to the gym. For some reason there were a bunch of senior citizens at the gym and rambling around the equipment as though they were being introduced to the facility at an open house. There weren’t that many students there but enough that it wasn’t as empty as it has been. Today I got on the ‘Mill and started to run. I am not used to running so it was a combination of running and fast-walking for the 15 minutes that ticked down on the machine. By the end of the routine, I was a drip of sweat and breathing dryly. I then stumbled over to do some crunches but my shins were in pain again – like someone was stabbing needles under the bone. The crunch-bench, where you hooked your feet under padded arms, did not help. I hoped that I could stretch out my shins a little but as soon as I sat back to do the first set, the pain shot up my legs and I ripped my feet out from under the guards as quickly as possible. That didn’t work.

So then I got on the padded mat next to some 20 year-old girl who was doing some kind of leg-lifts on her side and started doing crunches without anything holding my shins. They’re not easy but for some reason I don’t need anyone to hold my feet. I stick my legs out and hold the heels off the ground a little, like a leg-lift, and pull my shoulders off the ground in a flexed, half-crunch. We used do them in Karate and Kung-Fu with such frequency that I figured that they were great for something – other than making your ass burn.

Afterwards I went down stairs to the free-weights and worked on my arms. Ugh. I’m really going to have to work on them this quarter. If I do my legs 3x a week and my arms for the other two, and then switch them every other week it should be enough to make a dent in the man-boobs. They’re not as bad as some of the other faculty who I saw working out but they’re not where I want them to be; gone.

The sauna was awesome. Hot and dry. I would prefer a steam sauna, I think, but I got to relax inside and just listen to my IPOD; Angels and Demons. After about ten minutes, I jumped out and grabbed a shower to shock myself back to a normal temperature. The workers who sit at the main desk in the gym seem to be getting used to me being there. One of them, guy I usually see when I go in, asked if I was getting a jump-start on a New Year’s resolution. I smiled and told him that this is still from last year’s resolution and that this year was simply more of the same.

On the way back to my car to switch out bags again, I got call from Chris. His new laptop is still screwing up and he’s sending it back to them for a full refund. He’s not buying any HP tech anymore and asked me not to either. I’ve never had any HP tech other than printers. All that I’ve heard about HP, other than their printers, is that they’re always being sent back for something to be fixed so I can’t really blame him for getting fed up with them. He’s going to look at Dell to see if they can get him a laptop that will work. For now he still has his other lap – the big HP, but he’ll need something for classes in a few weeks. I can sympathize with him for not wanting to haul such a heavy and large hunk of tech around with him. If I’m not able to get this laptop to connect to their wireless network, I may hand it back to mom and grab the small NEC from Ember since it’s a lot smaller and it’s only there for entering text like I’m doing now.

12:41 p. More than an hour before my next class. I’m not sure if I want to try and grab something else to drink or just hang out here for a while longer. I’ll probably just hold the second class until round 2:30 also since it’s just an introduction. I can run home to grab something to eat on the way; probably some rice.

My legs still hurt a little and my arms are starting to loose their soreness. I think I’ll run over to UIS and find out if they have any answers as to why I can’t get my laptop to connect.

A Happy New Years and stuff

New Year's Resolution:
Work out 5x a week, get a job in my field, get paid to talk about something I like.
Oh wait... already doing that. Must come up with something new.

So there I was - most of the weekend - sitting in front of the computer or on a laptop borrowed from my mother and reviewing the lecture notes I'll be using this Wednesday. After reading through the professor's manual and the actual course text, I brewed up a first draft of what I'll be talking about. It's a two-hour class but for the first day I'm going to keep things short.

Ok, so my mind was a little blank when I first started to think about how to break down Sociology for an intro class. It's been almost eight years since I taught it and I haven't thought only on that level for a while.

The first real draft of the material was more of a student's perspective on things rather than a professor's so I thought that I would read over it and make some notes. Easy, right?
I put down the notes after a quick read-through and thought that I'd read it again on Tuesday before my first day of classes. Then, late last night, I picked it up once more and grabbed a red pen. Oh gods...
As you can tell, my mind was out for blood. I scribbled questions and ideas all over the page and realized that I should make the corrections into something more coherent.

And again, I read through it once and put it back in my notebook thinking that I was done. This morning, however, I looked over it (I can't put the stuff down) and I came up with another idea for how to format my notes.
So I thought to split the page down the middle so I could draw in some graphics and such on the side to help me keep the lecture flowing.

I swear, I'm putting it back in the notebook. I'm going to leave it there. Honest.