Thursday, August 25, 2005

Back to school

Yesterday was the first day of class and my first day teaching. I think it went okay. I was still a bit nervous in front of class -- I should have kept up with my Toastmasters training. But the students seem fun and mostly eager. Of course you have the guys who slump in their seats in the back of class. That will never change. And you always have that one wise-ass in class, but they can usually take as well they give and they are the one who makes you laugh the most. The one in this class likes Harley's and Vegas so I asked if he played poker and he asked me if I wanted to play him. Heck no, he'd be the one who takes all my money. Actually I really liked the wise-ass in my class last fall and will always remember how he hugged me on the last day of class.

I met with Dr. N yesterday regarding my thesis and I just need to make a few minor tweaks -- I was trying to complicate things a bit. I also spoke to DN and between the two, I feel much better regarding the thesis. I think some folks try to make it a big deal and some looming project that will derail graduation plans. As what Dr. N and DN explained, it's simply a research paper that you expand a bit -- just more of what I did in Research Methods last semester. Given that I worked on the Journal and how Dr. W made us dissect all those articles last fall, and given that I did market research for 2 years with VEM, I don't think doing the thesis will be that big of a deal.

Today I have the first class for my TTH section of Intro to PR. I also will have my Instructional Comm class tonight. I am looking forward to that. Students just rave about Dr. M. One of the thinks I'll have to do in that class is write an academic book chapter. I also get to teach an undergrad class late in the semester. How funny. Unfortunately it doesn't look like I can just have him come in and evaluate one of my classes. Part of the teaching assignment is to teach what we are writing for the book chapter.

More on the start of the semester later -- my battery is almost out of juice.

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