Oh, look, nearly another month gone by without a blog post. Here's a quick overview of what's going on. 1. Teaching. I got another class 2 weeks ago when another instructor got a better job and quit mid-semester. Overall, the new students seem sharp and hard working. This is now the norm - UVU has come a long way!!! Adding all those 4 year degrees I think has had a very good impact on the school. Right now I have a 3" pile of papers, of which I've graded just over 1". As long as I chip away a little every day, it gets done. Good papers are EASY to grade! A pleasure, I can almost say (and sometimes say quite sincerely). Bad or rather undeveloped papers take 5-10 times longer since I have to pay much closer attention. That's why I try to be as helpful and motivating as I can. Well, that's one reason. I ran into a student from last semester this week who told me that not only is his opinion of English greatly improved due to my class, but he now enjoys *learning* from his education rather than just checking things (assignments, courses) off. Imagine that! It make me think I should maybe keep on teaching, but... 2. I may end up getting a job with Adobe this year. Omniture, actually, which Adobe bought. Advanced web analytics stuff. Designing systems companies to track how effective their web pages are. That would triple my income, which I desperately need. 3. My "final" revision of my textbook arrives this week, and I'll see if I can get it approved for use. If so, I'll get marketing it to other instructors, too. If that works, then I may be able to afford to teach after all. We'll see how it goes. 4. SAR and MRA stuff have been keeping me busy as well. Not too many rescues, but a list of things that could take me a month of full time work. At least the biggest project is also the least urgent and can wait. Various other tasks and favors take up chunks of several hours here and there, so my volunteer time is really tapped out, especially when I need to earn a lot more money and I feel like I should be focusing a lot more on that first. 5. I published two more books last week. Just ebooks, though, on Amazon Kindle. Visit UofLife.com for links. They're short stories that I had already written. I just had to revise, design book covers, and format for Kindle. It's nice to check things off the do list that don't take too much time. 6. Spring is delaying! I look forward to more consistently warm weather! Hurrrry! Maybe it'll arrive by the weekend. 7. Moments of social life here and there. It's nice to see you, friends, and it'd be nice to see even more. XOXO. Good thing SAR and teaching include a good dose of that. 8. Long list of things I haven't gotten to yet. Fix the top end of my XR400 motor. Oil change in the car. Clean the house. Run. Blind dates I'm supposed to meet. Etc. etc. etc. Does this summary leave you feeling like you don't really know what's really going on in my life? That's bc other than all this, there's not a whole lot. I'm not complaining. They're all good things keeping me busy, and I do like to accomplish things. I'll change...soon...I think. I was reading a well-written student paper about proposing to a very sweet-sounding girl, for example, and it made me realize how jaded I've become! But I can change. I can change fast once I set my mind to it. I already am. What else...? Reading. Highly recommended books read recently include Wild at Heart, which takes a refreshing Christianity-oriented view on what men should really be like (not Mr. Rogers, more like William Wallace, etc.) with several other great ideas, and Believing Christ, an excellent treatise on the whole grace-vs-works false dichotomy and the question of how to know when you're "good enough." Anyway, that's the short list. That's the overview. And that's what you get, bc it's late and I have class at 7 a.m., Lunch with an old friend back in the US till Tuesday at 11 (je suis tellement content de te revoir!), maybe meet with someone whose book I may end up publishing after that, 2" pile of papers to grade, and all those other things that I'm eager to check off my list so I can start on a new one.