Lazy-eye Light

As I was puttering into school on Wednesday morning, sometimes I wonder if everything I see is being accurately represented by my brain. I mean, usually spend all day at school Tuesday, and then stay at my sister's apartment working until 11 or 12, then get up and out early and without coffee on Wednesday. That is just a recipe for hallucination.

Anyway, the traffic light as I'm entering Yellow Springs changes from red to green as I'm approaching. There are two lights present at that intersection (though only one lane) and one was slightly delayed from the other in changing. I immediately thought of a lazy-eye, or Pixar blink. It is just fitting, because that is how I feel every Wednesday driving in the dark of winter morning. Also, school is in high swing now and everyone is whining about classes, papers, tests, and presentations. I could also whine, but, that would just belabor the point and increase whiny butt attitudes.

Instead, I choose to look at it in the way that in 5 weeks, I'll have lived though my first semester as a professor, and I'm still alive, health (knock on wood), and doing fairly well in my grad school classes. Therefore, I've reached my first semester goals (as of this point).

This does not say that every class has been award winning, perhaps none have been award level, but that's ok. I'm a noob.

Also, other life updates, I finally finished patching and painting all of the nail holes in our house, our porch is 99% finished, I cleaned (but no uncluttered) my office, and I think Thelma is loosing some weight. We don't want a diabetic kitty...

However, some negative news: my surround sound receiver keeps dropping audio when watching TV. NOT COOL! Also, I have do landscaping on Saturday. I loathe gardeningish things, but, it needs to be done and will hopefully look nice.

and as always...

~"I have no head. I have no head. I have no head. I have no head..."~

Whisper in the Dark

So, it's been just about a month since I decided to grace the online world with an update on my life as a teacher, guess why....IT IS BUSY!

Anyway, October has been a fine month. The weather has finally cooled down and I'm almost needing a jacket to walk to my classes.

Speaking of classes, I just had an extended weekend away from them due to Fall Break. It was a nice change of pace until Saturday when I finally decided it was time to do some grading. Now, due to life happening, grading had fallen behind a bit in early October so there was quite a hefty pile of papers and polygons lying around for me to wade through and assign a conjured feeling that I possessed about the work in the for form of a letter. A's, B's, C's, and the like. I must say though, I feel that I may spend more time grading these collective works than my classes spend producing them. However, by the end of the batch I feel I am gaining considerable speed and efficiency in my grading craft. That, or I just dreamed that last few as I was fitfully sleeping that night.

On a side note, not dealing the professorship duties, I attended the farewell tour of Mae, one of my more favorite group of instrumentalists and vocal exercisers. It was pretty much everything I could have hoped for and I even waited around and talked to each of the band members, got their mark on an album I purchased, and generally felt like a middle school girl at an N'SYNC concert. Do people even know who they are anymore?

Well, back to the normal blabbering. I discovered something else about fall time in Cedarville today, apparently it is 'update tech cart' time. I went in to teach After Effects today only to find that it (and all my other installed programs) had magically disappeared from the computer. Luckily for my astute class, I arrive an hour early to class almost every day and was able to overcome network idiocy and install the program moments before class started. If that hadn't worked, I would probably have just drawn the program on the white erase board and taught from there. They might have enjoyed it more, but adding Ripple and Fractal Noise would have been a bit tedious.

So, now you know what has been my life. Also, grad school...busy. Lot's of busy. Should be more busy, but, I'm too busy for more busy. Have I said busy enough? Is this paragraph too busy with busy business?

I'm done, both literally and metaphorically.

~"Too bad! He's blown his vocal box. I guess that makes me the new leader!"~

Found!

So, I've been found by my devious students. I thought it would take a little longer, but apparently I'm an old fogy, and had my facebook profile open to all. That has since been rectified.

Also, one of my students is going to the Muse concert. I now 'hate' her. However, I am hoping to get to go to Mae on Oct. 12th. I will know tonight whether my students let me move a class to Thursday or not.

Oh well, time to teach.

no quote due to time... Sorry I know that is what everyone reads for.

A Few More Hours Please.

Everyone has those days were you just can't seem to fit everything in. I experienced my latest one of those this past Tuesday.

I don't teach my Tuesday class until 6pm at night, so I thought I could mix a little business and pleasure and work freelance while up in Ohio. The plan was to be back by 4pm. Remember that when you are reading further down.

I am not a bad person!

I'll start off with a bit of history here. I like working on videos, I like making money, and I especially like combining both of those things. In an unexpected turn of events I was approached to help out on a video shoot in Springfield and make some extra cash. So far so good, but I don't have a lot of free time. The shoot is on a Tuesday. That's doable. And "I'll have you back by 4pm, 2 hours before your class" ... PERFECT!

So, I stay Monday night up in Ohio so I don't have to wake up at PRE-dawn's butt crack and drive up. The shoot goes fairly well, except I don't get back on campus until after 5pm.

Enter problem.

I also have two practicum meetings on Tuesday: one at 4pm and one at 5pm. I mention these to you at this point in the story because I also had forgotten about them when I was setting up this whole gig. I did think to email the 4pm people that I may be a 'bit late.' But showing up at 5pm is pretty bad.

The really awful thing is that the students actually waited around the ENTIRE HOUR for me!!! Who does that in college? I felt pretty much like a loser.

Anyhoot, they forgave me and I taught my 3D class in jeans and a T-shirt (not my standard dress code). I was a little frazzled, a lot of guilty, and none too shy of wondering if I smelled from the labor of the day, but at the end of the day, I still sleep at night.

I learned that I really can't schedule things near school event times in the future. And that I CAN run from Tyler, to Alford, then back to Tyler with an armload of books and not die ... and knowing is half the battle.

--I will count above G.I. Joe reference as my random quote for this post--

Technology: Can't live with it, can't ....

I experienced my first fun technology glitch as a professor last Friday. I worked on my Powerpoint for my 3pm class most of the day and in the 5 min walk from my office to class, my flash drive decided it would contabuleminate my file. So, I had 30 minutes to come up with something else. I'm lucky I'm always early to class. In the end I think it worked out. The student got to play in Photoshop instead of just hearing about it.

Also, my awesome laptop cannot handle some of the features of Photoshop and Maya that I am trying to teach. That will have to be addressed sooner or later. On a similar note, does anyone know how many files I can write/erase/reorganize on my little thumb drive before it goes on strike? By now I know that I would have.

In a completely unrelated turn of events I have discovered that I am in love with Coldstone Creamery's Shakes. I had a PB&C and tried my wife's Milk and Cookies one. If I was Oprah, they would be one of my 10 favorite things for the year (I do not watch Oprah BTW). I think it heaven, I will eat Qdoba and drink a PB&C and not only will they be healthy for me, but they will taste great together.

~"This a peace conference or a slam dance party?"~

Whirlwind

Wow, the first week is over already? Where does the time go???

Anyhoot, I am now officially a tried and true knight of knowledge. I have taught two classes and I didn't pass out, no one laughed at me (unless I wanted them too), and no one dropped out of my classes. Wee.

My first day was pretty hectic and was literally like a motion blurred image. Tuesday night I stayed at my sister's apartment so I wouldn't have to get up quite so early on my first day. I decided to treat myself to Smashburger because that's something different and sounded like a good celebration meal. Well, Smashburger, of course, smashed my system. I spent the entire evening loathing my decision on the couch trying to finish up my presentation notes for Wednesday morning. Also, I left my undergarments and toiletries for the next day back at Cedarville. I didn't want to drive 1.5 hours to go get them, so I just took a shower in the morning and stole a little drip of my sister's girlie smelling body wash so I would feel semi-clean. I then ate a slice of bread (stomach sill not 100%) and headed off to face the day.

So, there I was in my classroom about 30 minutes early, starving and with no caffeine in sight. Everyone started drizzling in and I made it through the class to chapel. I really have no idea what I said that first hour to those 10 students. The class isn't super easy to grasp even if I was at 100%, but I at least told them about their assignment and had them fill out index cards about themselves. We also had a 10 minute discussion on the concept of 'yellow'.

I had a few hours til my next class and was able to eat some Subway. SALVATION! I felt so much better after that. My afternoon class only has 6 students and it's what you could call a 'fun' class. They were pretty excited about what we were going to be learning and I had an extremely fun hour talking with them and going over what we would learn.

Just because this is getting long, I'll quickly recap Friday, my next class day. It was way awesomer than Wednesday. I felt much more prepared and ready for the day, I had already met everyone, and by the end of the 9am class, people looked like they had some understanding growing within their eyes. I'm super excited about the semester and can't wait to see what my student's come up with over the next 15 weeks.

Off to finish my last syllabus. Still one class to go on Tuesday!


~"I don't care if the entire EARTH explodes! We can always relocate."

Rounding Third

As I tried to think of artistic ways to write why I didn't update for so long again, I just gave up and decided to give it to you straight. I'm busy and I'm lazy.

Quite a bit has happened since my last little dabble in blogdom. My wife and I attended the official award ceremony and dinner to kick off the new year for faculty and staff. It was a little cheesy at times (game show during awards ceremony), but overall it was a very enjoyable evening. Also, my wife had the chance to meet some of my fellow titan's of knowledge and their significant others. It was a good evening of catching up and I was able to down some amazing turtle cheesecake.

I've been slaving away at my syllabi and I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a good thing too, because classes start next Wednesday! I've looked over my textbooks, made some headway on class assignments, and have the faces of my dear students looking up at my from my desk now. I love the ability to print them out before I see them. I still don't know all of their names yet, but I'll get there.

I also found out today that I have five freshmen to advise. This will also be a learning experience, but I figure...how bad could I really mess up their lives if I'm a little off my A game the first year? Not much. Unless I tell them they should do video and they really should be a nuclear engineer. That could come up in later therapy sessions.

Overall, I'm feeling much better about starting the year up. I'm uber excited about classes starting and getting to meet new students. I hope I can get my students just as stoked as I am about what I'm teaching. I know that's always the challenge, but is also one of the greatest rewards.




~"Just once, couldn't your attitude reflect the gravity of the situation??"
~"Not if I can help it!"

Apologies

So I may have left everyone hanging for a few days there. I am sorry about that. I know I do have a few readers at this point, so I had such a build up to my last day and then...nothing.

Well, who would have guessed, life became really busy! I was gone most of my week that I had off between jobs, and then I was either working on freelance, grad school, or at college working on my classes and attending new faculty orientation.

New faculty orientation has so far been a mediocre experience. I'm teaching at the same school I attended so most of what has been said so far is old hat. Starting next Wednesday though, I think I'm going to learn how to be a teacher (which is exciting since my students will be filing in so soon.) Also, I was "excited" to find out that all the New Faculty meetings for the rest of the year will be every other Thursday...the one day that I don't have classes and was not going to have to commute to work. Commuting is 3 hours a day 150 miles. Woot.

So now I'm sweating over my course objectives and syllabus to help guide me while I then have a coronary trying to actually plan out my classes. The nice thing is, that I heard many people say that it's better to just stay a few weeks ahead.

I also had my first major departmental letdown. My wife drove up separately to attend a Fac/Staff picnic only to have absolutely no one from my department in attendance. Excellent meet and greet. We did however have some good food and talked with a couple I swear I remember, but have no idea who they actually were.

My office is a huge cavern of space that I will now fill with toys, and eventually fill with knowledge. I'm thinking of printing a large format picture of myself and pasting it to the wall for fun. That or Dilbert. Either one could have some great discussion potential.

Anyhoot, it's extremely late and horrendously thunderstorming, so I'm going to go ahead and log off before I'm buzzed off.

~"Sometimes even the wisest of men and machines can be in error."

Out with the Old

I'm officially done with my production phase of life now. My last day at work went well. Donuts, pizza, jokes, cake, and accidentally butt-dialing my mom for a 30 min period of time. Awesome.

I'm truly going to miss the guys I worked with, but I am totally excited about gearing up for my orientation in August. I hope that I don't feel too overwhelmed the first few weeks, but I'm confident that I'll be ready for August 25th when the real party starts and I have fresh young minds to fill.

I'm heading up to campus on Monday to get my ID and office keys and hopefully I'll be able to drop off some junk ... I mean fine tools of knowledge ... in my office.

I have this next week off work to live one last free break before the storm of life rages back up again.

The true adventure is about to begin. Readers beware, the may be a wild ride down the rapids, or a leisurely float in a tube down the stream. We shall all find out together.

~"I've never seen anything this beautiful in the whole galaxy! Okay, give me the bomb."

A Quick One

Ok, two days left and I feel it. We are going out to lunch today for the last time as a video team, I'm assuming my exit interview is tomorrow (I hope so, I wore jeans today). My office has like 2 things left that are mine (Optimus Prime keychain sitting on my monitor and a fake carton of milk I made for a shoot).

It pretty much feels like when I graduated from college. I'm super excited to move on to teaching, and I'm like 98.7864% sure that I'll absolutely love it, but it's still sad to leave my friends.

I just think about the fact that I see these guys more than my wife probably. That is so weird. I think I actually spend more time with my wife, but she is sleeping about 9 hours of that time (me 6 or 7). So, these guys up at the 'Ville better be pretty cool. I thought they were a few years ago, so I'm pretty sure I'll be Ok.

Well, I gotta go pick up one of my fellow editors. Don't want to be late!

~"Ziplock bag not locking. Pop top can not popping!"

5 Days

So. I'm down to my last week of work as a video editor before moving into the world of academia. I don't really think that it's quite hit me yet. As I was devouring my nectar ice ball from Sweettooth and discussing my ideas for class with my Dad, I realized I feel pretty much ready.

Feeling ready and being ready are different things however. I still have hours of planning and Powerpoint making left to do. I have to think up assignments, and how I'll grade them. Will I have to give any F's my first semester? I sure hope not. I did think up of a fun little aspect I can use as a 'calling card' for my classes today though. I think I'm going to implement Final Jeopardy on my tests. I'm going to pick some random, hard to know fact and include it as bonus on all my tests. This will have nothing to do with current subject matter, so everyone should have an equal chance at getting it right (except foreigners, but, oh well).

As I'm working on my last project at work, I realized today at 9am that I couldn't care less about it. Then, by 4pm, when I still didn't have all the pieces to me and it was due by 5, I started to care a bit. But alas, those days are soon to be over (until grades are due (but that's month's away)). I will not miss the weeks of slow days and then the week of Hade's wrath to make up for it. I'm thinking that overall, the schedule will become more regular once I'm teaching my classes. I'll let you know if I'm right or not.

Also, on a side note. The new Spiderman actor is from Union, Kentucky. He could have been my neighbor! So, I'll definitely be seeing that (duh! Spiderman!)

Well, again, 5 work days left. I'll let you know when I feel it, or if I don't. I just don't want to hyperventilate and pass out on 9am August 25th. Unless I do it to scare my first students ever ... now there's an idea ...

~"You will now put down your arms and return to work, or the dark
guardians will incinerate you where you stand. Please decide quickly."

Struggling

So,today's topic will be current struggles.

1. I'm already struggling to keep up with this blog as much as I'd like. I'm terrible about writing about myself. While in college, I had ran a stint with Xanga.com for awhile and was pretty consistent and even had a small following due to some creative contests my friends and I would have. Perhaps I'll incorporate that here once I go more public with this endeavor.

2. I'm struggling with leaving my current job. I'm not changing my mind or anything, but I really like the guys I work with. They are really my friends, and it sucks to have to leave them. Also, it sucks that they don't have my replacement yet. I really hope they get someone that's even better than I was and fits in well.

3. I'm struggling that in two weeks I will be employed as an Instructor and I still feel a bit like deer in headlights. I pretty sure I'll be fine, but as the wise man sayeth, "It's always darkest before the dawn." I'll probably be more nervous in my 9am class than the freshmen in the seats in front of me.

4. I'm struggling with which toys to take up to my new office. This is definitely a lighter struggle, but hey, we all need some fun in our lives... So do I take the Corvette Transformer, or the Scion one? Lightning McQueen that has propulsion power, or the paper weight one? Do I take some comics or leave them home where they won't be bent up by perusing students?

So next

1. I'm not struggling with leaving the annoying aspects of my job, and I'll leave it at that. Don't want to get anyone in trouble :)

2. I'm not struggling with the choice to buy Mario Galaxy 2, it's only a matter of time..

3. I'm not struggling with making the decision to watch Harry Potter 7 on opening night even though I'll want to die the next morning after staying up so late.

4. I'm not struggling with the potato chip decision for tomorrows lunch. Salt n Vinegar Pringles. They are amazing.


~"The Matrix... yes. I've been keeping it warm for you."

First up. Trial and Error

So, I pretty much started this blog because of classes I'll be teaching starting this Fall. I'll be shaping young broadcasters and journalists minds, so I thought I'd better start journalitizing myself. Also, I'm going to test out some web tracking stuff with this blog hopefully.

Anyhoot. More to come shortly, such as my awesome life adventures, and how I came to be at the place I am going. Deep stuff.

~"Til all are one."