Summer School Update

1. Sadly, lately summer school has been keeping me from studying. I desperately need to get more focused and figure out how to better merge my teaching and studying duties.

2. I was a substitute this week and helped out a friend by teaching his Stat 100 class this past week. Our classes are similar, but he definitely teaches more in depth than I do. I enjoyed being able to help someone out, but it certainly was a challenge. He has a handful of athletes (about 7 of his 40 students are football players) and on Thursday a few of the football players walked in late - not quietly, noisily (is that a word?)! They felt the need to say hi to people on the way to their seats, and then sat down and began talking to their teammates in a loud voice. It is a small class and I couldn't talk over them! Twice I had to say "Guys, I'm trying to teach here and I don't think I should have to yell to teach so please be quiet!" Thankfully, they left during the break we took halfway through class. To my friends out there who attended classes at larger schools (or at least schools with larger classes), what did professors do in this situation? I honestly didn't think I'd have to worry about discipline issues at the college level! I felt like I was teaching high school again!!!

3. My class this summer is fabulous! My students were contributing to discussions on the first day!!! My athletes are wonderful and are very respectful! Overall, it's a great class!!! One student brought her three year old son to class a few times this past week and each day the child slept peacefully through class!! I was very impressed!! My students are also very considerate and notify me when they miss class - a big difference from the spring when students skipped regularly!

4. I have a future Olympian in my class!!! I have a student from Botswana who will be running for his country in the Olympics this August!! You can go here to learn more: Masheto. Maybe it's just me, but I think that is just too cool!!! Hopefully broadcasting will be helpful and I'll be able to see him during the Olympics!

5. My first test didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I always knew summer school was hard as a student because it's a lot of material to learn in a short time frame. I am now learning that it's also hard on the teacher because it's a lot to teach in a short time frame and, at least for me, it's hard helping students process everything and learn it quickly! It's a challenge, but hopefully I will learn from it and as a result, be a better professor in the future.

6. Not pertaining to summer school, but pertaining to teaching, I now know that in the fall I will be teaching an 8 am Stat 100 (which I've been teaching all along) course to freshmen and transfer students (it's currently open to about 150 students). I'm super excited to teach this course again, however, I'm a little nervous about teaching at 8 am. I am a morning person and I know I'll be awake and energetic, but I don't know how to get my students to be alert and enjoy my class early in the morning. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!!

Smile: My dad has been here the past few days! Yesterday and today I was able to walk with him while he played golf (18 holes today, 36 holes yesterday), which wasn't quite the same as playing, but was still very fun! My dad being here also means that I have been eating some very delicious meals - yay for steak!!

Extra Smile: I wore a pair of shorts today for golf that I haven't been able to wear in a long time!! Also, when I went shopping this past week for a white shirt (all my skirts need a white shirt and I didn't have any!), I bought a large (not an XL) from GAP!! And I bought two skirts (each for $8) that are size large from NY and Company!!! I'm still not where I want to be size-wise, but at least I'm going in the right direction!