Friday, January 30, 2009

Not gone forever

I've been neglecting this blog, and instead focusing on teaching and grant writing and other stuff. Life has been busy and somewhat stressful, but mostly in a good way. We just finished the fourth week of the term and so far as I can tell, classes are going well. It's been a pretty productive month. I've done a better job than I usually do of staying productive and on top of things. I'm still behind, especially in keeping up with some email conversations and I've only been so-so about grading. But nevertheless, I feel like I'm on a bit of a roll. I'm not sure exactly why. Some of it is having a great mix of classes: Chaos and Fractals, Calculus II, and a tutorial/independent study on Statistics. They're all really different, which is fun.

Also, I moved into a much bigger office right before I left for Germany and Poland in December. The added space has been fantastic. It's made a much bigger difference than I had imagined. I didn't realize how cramped I was in my old office. I can now easily meet with more than one student at a time, I've got a blackboard, and I have enough room to actually organize my books. I'm very pleased.

In other news, January has been a messy month in terms of weather. There have been a number of sloppy storms, and it's gotten "evil cold", to use Andrew's phrase. But we've survived. On really, really cold mornings it's very hard to remember that it was once warm and that it will get warm again. But the days are getting longer and the light a little brigher. So spring will come. Eventually.

Anyway... I may try to get back to posting regularly here. Or I may not for a little while. Sometimes I feel a tiny bit angsty about not posting, but not now. I figure I'll post when the blogging muse visits. In the meantime, I'll certainly continue to twitter and facebook and such.