Does Vacation Mean More Work?

Yes it does.

I just spent the weekend in Nashville and had a great time with the wife, parents, and some extended family. It was pretty relaxing, I feel like I ate a herd of animals, and I got a decent amount of sleep.

Now it is back to reality.

It's Sunday night and I have to prepare for tomorrow. I've had my coffee, I've got some Hammock waves rising from my laptop speakers, and I'm Powerpointing with a vengeance (except for the moment I'm taking here).

So, the question is, was having a day and a half of vacation with being able to do little to no work worth it? Yes it was.

I realized that almost having a mental collapse last week with my midpoint review looming in the near future and having classes to start from scratch again, that I need a day or two of reprieve every so often. Even though I am a bit stressed about getting things done, I feel quite good about my weekend of recuperation.

I think I will be taking another break/quick catch-up in two weeks when my friend visits from Texas. But I haven't seen him in like 2 years, so again, totally worth any last minute frenzy for the day or so of great fun and conversation.

Feel the same or different? Let me know? I love to know what other people are thinking.

I also came across this idea for my next post finalizer.
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Rest is a good thing, but boredom is its brother.
Learn Chinese: Very busy = Hun-maon
Lucky numbers (Lotto): 10-11-24-33-47-42
Daily numbers (Pick3): 128

I'm Back?

Well, needless to say. Life became a bit hectic last semester and I drifted away in to the abyss of extreme distractedness by things like work, school, and life in general.

I am going to try to stay on top of this whole writing thing better this semester.

The first week was a complete sprint to the finish. I got along better psychologically than last semester, but I was still just as busy, actually, probably more busy!

I have three classes, three practicumites, and an independent study for this semester. I was going to be presenting my midpoint review for grad school this semester as well, but I almost had a nervous breakdown when I found out I had to turn everything in by February 4th. However, after talking with the Director of Animation & VFX I felt a lot better. He said I could still go this semester and be fine, but I opted for Summer so I could have a more developed (and hopefully impressive) presentation instead of something I shot out of my behind at the last second. *sorry if that comment offends anyone, but it made me smile

Snow happened, and I was stranded at a fellow faculty's house last night. I'm really thankful that there are such awesome people around me that I get to work with. Thanks so, so much Mr. and Mrs. B. You totally rock.

Wife is home. Time to go eat pizza before I waste away to nothing....

I'm going to think of something else other than quotes this semester, but later.

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?"~