Jos

The past week has been exhausting. I agreed to be on the middle-school principal search committee, but was surprised when it turned out that it would require 20 hours of time during the first two weeks of the semester. It's been difficult and has not earned my any popularity contests with people who expect me to always be there for them. That said, it's been very interesting and I feel like my input has been important. I believe the short-list of candidates would have looked different without my participation and that, in the long run, it may make all the difference. We interviewed three candidates on Thursday and I was so tired when I got home last night, I had a drink with dinner and then pretty much just went to bed.

I got to see what the next version of the Student Information System will look like. If you like the current system, you'll like the new system. Of course, nobody likes the current system. When asked about some of the obscure categories among the course groupings, we were told that there were administrative requirements for dummy classes. I facetiously asked if the administrators also took the dummy classes -- all in good fun, of course.

Unfortunately, next week doesn't look much better than this week. I have AAAS at the end of the week and then (hopefully) a visitor from Chile coming for a day next weekend. I can't ever seem to get ahead.

My class seems off to a good start -- the one hour twice a week schedule feels better than once a week for two hours. Seeing the students more often makes it easier to remember names and the shorter chunks of time seem more productive.