cymbaljack

Well it's almost time. The nutcases (and those with no work or school on Friday) will be at midnight shows. And if you don't already have plans for the weekend, you too should go see Serenity seven or eight times to drive up the initial box-office receipts and make sure Whedon has the cash and popularity to get Firefly back on TV.

All of that said, I'm not going until next weekend, so I don't want to hear anything about it. So if you bump into me and start to say anything that I think might be related to the movie, I'm going to cover my ears and run away singing, "I can't hear you!" Possible triggers for making me run away would be these:

• The names Mal, Zoe, Wash, Jayne, River, or Simon. (If you are named Jane or Simon, don't try to introduce yourself to me for a week.)
• Comments like, "I thought it was pretty good but--" I will be out of earshot before you can explain you were talking about Harry Potter VI: Revenge of the Dark Side (or whatever it was called).
• "Joss Whedon is my master now" t-shirt sightings.
• "Guess what I did this weekend?" I'm sure it's wonderful, but I can't afford to take the chance that you'll tell me about it.

So thanks for supporting the movie, but stay far, far away from me until I can support it too.

As Minnesota Vikings fans reel from the embarrassment of this week's game, they may get too pessimistic, as though there is no good news. They are likely overlooking these good points:

• Thanks to Philadelphia (go Eagles!) and Chicago, Minnesota's loss was not the worst of the day.
• 2-point conversion rate: 100%.
• Head Coach Mike Tice still believes in the team. So much so that, down almost 30 points with 3 minutes remaining, he opts to go for the onside kick. When that fails, he uses a timeout before the 2-minute warning to try to have enough time for the comeback.
• Both "Minnesota" and "Vikings" spelled correctly in the official program.
• Back-up quarterback Brad Johnson kept on sidelines to protect him from unnecessary risk of injury.
• String of quarters without an offensive score finally snapped at seven.

So it looks to be another great football season in Minnesota! Get on the bandwagon now--there's plenty of room.

Coming back from sabbatical has been both easier and harder than I'd expected.

Some things immediately felt familiar and natural. I wasn't particularly nervous about the first-day stuff. Organizing small groups, answering the familiar questions, all felt like I hadn't missed a day. But I was very intimidated at the thought of learning all those names--even though I used all my same techniques and got through it right on my traditional schedule. Somehow I expected it to be harder.

I'm more aware of being an introvert now. I really noticed how difficult and tiring those first three "getting to know you" weeks were. Now that I kind of know these people, and they're beginning to trust me, it's a little easier to go to class.

I had forgotten how much it takes to get some students to be equipped to be responsible for the course schedule on their own. I had forgotten how much conferences take in terms of energy, even when they are completely peaceful and productive. And apparently, I've forgotten how to get things done in a timely manner, because I can remember sometimes feeling like very briefly I was caught up, but I'm nowhere near those parts now. Part of that is that I've done a better job of encouraging students to give me drafts, which translates to more work for me but better results for them--so that's a tradeoff that's worthwhile. But I can't do everything.

One of my resolutions coming back was to continue to do the important work of reflecting on classes and being flexible and bringing my creative energy to the classroom--coming up with new activities, new approaches. But that just takes time, too, and when I'm slogging through participation grades and drafts and doing conferences and fixing broken stuff on D2L and thinking I'm really overdue to collect journals in 3 of my classes...oh, boy, does it get interesting.

I'm not complaining. I said in my journal last year that if I want an easy job, I should just go get one. I know this job is impossible. I'm just trying to work through it sufficiently that I can feel confident that I'm doing high-quality teaching but still managing to get the important, non-glamorous bits done and maintaining a healthy approach to a balanced, God-pleasing life.

That I'm still functional and upright through the first fourth of the semester is a miracle in its own right. And it's good that I'm being driven to depend on God. And it will get better, as I get more back in the swing, as I finish recovering from this cold, as I work through a few more of the decisions I made about teaching last year. It won't be easy. I didn't ask for easy.

It will send me back to the drawing board later in the semester and during the break, to think about whether there is anything I'm committing myself to doing that eats up my time without giving students real benefit.

I don't know WHAT ever made me think I would have time to keep up a blog once I started teaching again. As I'm really starting to have to juggle class planning and drafts and grading and tasks for the department and whatever else comes along...whew. I'm up to my eyes in it.

And there are things I'd like to get to here, about teaching and about other things. I'll review the new Switchfoot CD, but first I have to get enough time to at least listen to the entire thing once. I want to talk about drums and drama. I want to talk about the transition back into teaching. I'm sure there's other stuff too. Right now, I need to decide whether I can get a couple of drafts dealt with before I go back to class, or if I should read the assignment for tomorrow's class instead.

So, it's still a tough job. I'm still trying to manage my time in such a way that I don't work 70 hours a week, that I maintain space in my life for the other important things. But it ain't easy.

"Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you."

• Lots of people don't know what a "deadline" is.
• Logan's Run is even more entertaining now than when I first saw it, and not purely for laughs--though yeah, for laughs.
• Anything presented in any medium can be made better by letting Joss Whedon write it. After seeing what he did with X-Men, I really, really cannot wait for Serenity.
• The Roland TD-6 drum kit is every bit as awesome as I thought it was. :)