Tuesday blog

Wow, I guess it's been awhile since I've blogged. Lots has happened.

I've registered over 100 students at the seminary.

I have now taught eight sessions of Introduction to Liberal Arts, and as far as I know, no one has fallen asleep yet!

We are planning a weekend trip to Lake Beauty with our church, Solomon's Porch. We went last year and had a blast--horse back riding, good food, rest, playing Mafia (the card game), good food, did I mention the good food?

Tim has an offer accepted on another north Minneapolis home. He hopes to close soon and we have a friend lined up to move in.

SemPM started at the seminary last night. There were over 150 students present! Fortunately, we had signs posted directing new students to their classrooms.

There was a Koehnen family reunion on Saturday (Tim's mom's side of the family). Dozens of people came and it was fun to reconnect with Tim's many cousins and their families (aunts and uncles too).

Mark took a bike ride to southern Minnesota and back. They made the trip back without stopping and he was beat. But what a good experience!

Luke is enjoying his education classes. So far, so good! Christina is contemplating school, but so far no final decisions.

Raven is hovering underneath me because we're having a rain storm with some thunder and lightning. He sounds gruff, but he's really a big chicken.

Hopefully I'll come up with more interesting stuff to write about next time. Life has been so busy (mostly work) lately that I think my creativity is zapped.

Till next time,

Suzi

Long week!

Well, the weekend is here! It's been a long, busy week, so I'm glad for a chance to sit down, catch my breath, and prepare for next week!

After registering dozens of students for the seminary SemPM program, I found that we'll have to re-register most of them due to classes changing (we have record enrollment and have to shuffle things around to accommodate everyone). So, new classes are being created, some are being combined and some are splitting.

I have now taught my second week of Introduction to Liberal Arts. I think it's going pretty well, but at my last class session I could see inattentiveness and everyone was packing up their backpacks at the end of class time. It was like we had a bell ringing (we don't) or something. I talked to other professors who assured me that the most engaging lecturer sometimes encounters this. It may depend on how much sleep a student got the night before or a whole host of other things. I'm trying not to be too discouraged about it.

In Anthropology/Sociology, things remain busy. Besides helping six full-time professors get off to a good start this school year, I'm working with three adjuncts who are only on campus once a week, so they need an advocate on campus. I'm also setting up time sheets for all our TAs (eight I think) as I will be approving their time sheets on line. Yesterday the financial aid person whose training workshop I attended for this came and did a "house call" as I was struggling to set some things up.

Meanwhile, at home, Luke is busy at school. He asked me a few questions about our family tree, as he is going to give a short report on that. Christina talked to me about taking the SAT test and looking at colleges. This week she's thinking about law school. Mark went on a bike trip down to Winona, MN (two hours by car). He comes back today or tomorrow. He and his friend have a make-shift tent and have been sleeping at parks they find along the bike trail. They made it down safely, so I'm hoping they don't get too much rain on their way home.

Tim's work has slowed down a bit, allowing him to catch up on paper work to some extent and work on Mark's house. He's also looking to purchase another rental for a friend who needs to make a move.

Oh--last weekend I rode my scooter to Bethel and started home to encounter rain! It was my first experience riding in the rain. Not a lot of fun--although my head and torso stayed dry--my jeans got soaked. I didn't find the roads to be too bad, though--so that was good. I was worried about my cell phone and pump, but they were protected enough by my leather jacket that they came out just fine.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Till next time,


Suzi