Back at it!

Ahhh... I'm enjoying my last day of Christmas break - trying to wrap up the home projects I got started on in mid-December and getting my stuff/act together to have a go at another semester!

I haven't had this much time off in 28 years! A little more than five weeks. It was GREAT to truly feel "retired" for a while but I'm anxious to get into a routine again. Juan had two weeks off and we got some fun stuff done like putting in a garden, and purchasing the recliners we'd talked about getting for the past several years. Now our "Arizona" room is put to good use as our media room and we enjoy relaxing in there after a long day.

Since I was selected for the MIS Preceptor thing (see previous post), I've decided to drop my Justice and Virtue class and cap my credit hours at 13. With working at H&R Block 20-30 hours a week, it just seemed like I was taking on too much at 16 credits. The Preceptor commitment won't be a traditional class, but it will take 5+ hours a week averaged over the semester. Standard classes generally take 6+ hours a week including the study/homework time so I didn't want to push it.

I'll get more info when our Preceptor "class" meets for the first time later this week, but here's what I know right now: I'll be involved in three aspects; grading (approximately 50-60 projects at a time for five different projects), proctoring (three exams and a final), and flex-lab (assisting students in the computer lab probably once or twice a week). It sounds like a lot of fun and a change of pace from the ordinary class format.

So here's how my schedule pans out:

- Monday: Math 109, Modern Latin America, H&R Block
- Tuesday: Math 109, English 102, homework
- Wednesday: (see Monday)
- Thursday: (see Tuesday)
- Friday: Modern Latin America, H&R Block or homework (alternating months)
- Saturday: H&R Block, homework
- Sunday: homework!

The Preceptor grading can be done from home and will occur only every third week with flex-lab on the other two weeks.

The funnest part about a new semester is obtaining the syllabus from each class and getting everything coordinated into my calendar. I had to chuckle at one of my fellow classmates last semester who whined that the teachers were "really piling on the work" at the end of the semester. No they weren't! Just read the syllabus!! Ah, youth!