I had my first Christmas last night with Dan and Jude. Jude received the Nintendo Switch he's wanted since last Christmas. Dan got him that and I got him a game for it. I also got him some clothes (he wasn't too excited) and we got him some science experiment type of kits to do at some point. I don't know how excited he was about those either but I wanted to get something that wasn't technology-based. One kit has you make sour candy in various forms and the other is a kit for making fake snow. I at least want to play with the fake snow kit.
I was finally able to sit back and watch the movie "White Christmas" last night at Dan's place. You know, the old movie with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, etc. I've seen pieces of it here and there but never make it through the whole movie. It was on Netflix believe it or not. Usually when I really want to see a movie it's not available to be streamed on Netflix. I also started reading a book for pleasure too. I'm hoping to read this book and one more before school starts up again. It's "The Girl that Kicked the Hornet's Nest". It's the third book in the series that I've been meaning to read for a long time. I got a really good coupon for $5 off any book for my Kindle so I bought it. I have a stack to read from LeAnn too. Need to get back into Harry Potter.
I did less Christmas cards this year and was done with those earlier than usual too. It connects to my grades being done early. I usually don't do my Christmas cards until my grades are done. People keep getting chopped from my list each year so even though I added some of Dan's family, the list gets shorter. I'm a dying breed because I really do like sending them out.
Christmas shopping was a little tricky but seemed easier this year. Gifts seemed easier to figure out and the budget was lower. (Yes Mom, it's nothing extravagant.) Gavin was actually the most difficult to shop for. He's gotten most of his gifts already because he needed them earlier in the month (e.g. new winter coat). Plus he's aware I'm saving up for a nice graduation gift for him.
I basically have time off until January 3rd. I do have some syllabi to work on and pre-semester work. I need to plan for a meeting I'm holding with grad students on January 4th. Some of them are getting lazy with teaching and treating it like a low priority. It's difficult for me because I need to crack down on them but I really don't have any ammo. I can't fire them unless they do something horrible. And we can't really afford to remove any grad students from teaching because we'd be short instructors then. It's something I complain about annually in my evaluation materials as I'm their "boss" but I don't feel like I have any "teeth" when it comes to being a disciplinarian. We've had a couple issues pop up recently and these students are simply not reading emails well and paying attention to details. Pretty sad when they are trying to get their masters degrees or Phds.
As of now I have a pretty full schedule for the spring. I am teaching three classes for ISU. One class has two sections so I'll have 90 students. The second has 30 students and the third is the class associated with Swim & Gym and has like 5 students. I'm also supervising two student teachers this semester too. One for the first eight weeks and one for the second eight weeks. I am down for three classes at DMACC too. One is my usual health class online for high school students, the second is the usual sport diversity class online too. The third is in-person on Monday nights. It's the same as the online health class but we meet once a week and everything else is placed on Blackboard. It had about 10 students last time so unless that drops greatly, they'll likely let me teach it. Wahoo $$$
I am excited to pack up tomorrow and head up to Waukon. We don't know what time we'll leave yet as Gavin is scheduled to work until 4pm but thinks he'll be off between 12-2pm. I could leave sooner but I get the impression Dan would like to follow me up. Dan and Gavin need to leave Christmas afternoon already but I plan to stay up in NE Iowa until December 30. I let a few people know but not many. It would be nice to see Jamie and Marie but I'm not holding my breath.
Speaking of which, I have more things to clean before tomorrow as well as some packing to start. I predict the next blog entry will be in 2018.
