My 48 Hours

Last Thursday, while I was still at work, T-- took the kids to Wichita to spend some time with her family there. The plan was to stay through a big birthday party Saturday evening, then drive home late Saturday night.

I intended, as I often do on these occasions, to take advantage of the peace and quiet to get some good work done. Mainly I had some computer stuff I wanted to do -- reviewing a blog for a new friend, getting caught up on my own blogging after a busy few weeks, and putting together some notes on a new project I'm working on (the Consortium). I figured I'd do a little lawn and house work, too, since our property got hit pretty hard with last week's apocalyptic hailstorm.

Anyway, when I got home from work to an empty house Thursday afternoon, the first thing I did was make a To Do list. (I estimated roughly that each item in the "Must Do" list should represent about 90 minutes of work).

• Must Do
• Thursday night
• Write Sun/Mon/Tue blog posts for next week
• Prepare newsletter for Saturday
• Friday morning
  
• Mow the lawn
  
• Clean out the gutters
  
• Friday afternoon
• Write Thu/Fri/Sat blog posts for next week
• Set up blog review spreadsheet on GDocs
  
• Friday night
• Review Julie's blog posts
  
• Review Julie's blog posts
• Saturday morning
• Chainsaw some trees
  
• Paint hall and bathrooms
  
• Saturday afternoon
• Review Julie's blog posts
• Review Julie's blog posts
• Saturday night
• Edit and link next week's blog posts
  
• Prepare next Saturday's newsletter
  
• Sunday afternoon
• Email Julie about the Consortium
  
• Complete detailed descriptions of the Consortium in Wave
  
• Sunday night
• Write Sun/Mon/Tues blog posts for next week
  
• Outline blog posts for June
  
• Remember to Eat!
• Lunch with D-- (discuss Consortium as non-profit)
• Dinner with K-- and N-- (discuss Consortium network/software)
  
• Lunch with Courtney (recruit her to the Consortium)
• Dinner with B-- (discuss Consortium business plan)
• Extra Credit (if I have free time)
• Recruit Carlos to the Consortium
• Social Writing
• Help Toby program BookMaker utility
• Get in touch with Doolin
• Email Julie about blog review
• Get Courtney her photos (from a Julie V shoot)
• Design novel template in GDocs
  
• Scan many things
• Edit/link guest posts for Doolin
• Make chapters for Carlos's e-Book
• Review Carlos's other support requests
• Call OU Admissions department
• Email Shawn about the Consortium
• Finish Ivanhoe
• Email Courtney about her blog
• Contact Schwinn customer support
• Lowe's run
• Fix exterior lights
• Drop seed, weed killer, and fertilizer on lawn
• Clean out garage work area
• Put some stuff in the attic
• Convert Becca's and Bryce's books to e-Book format
• Read Becca's and Bryce's books
• Check out Courtney's new WIP on GDocs
  
• Write Thursday's Creative Copy Challenge post
• Reply to many comments on my blog and Doolin's

Those were my 48 items in 48 hours (I mentioned them on Facebook). And...well, technically four of those items were scheduled for Sunday, but I'd have my whole family home on Sunday so I figured I'd need to get much of that done in advance.

Of course, I ended up adding to the list before I was done.

• Added since Thursday afternoon (all extra credit)
• Email Courtney about new photo policy at my blog
  
• Update About Page photos in color
• Clean up storm detritus on driveway, porch, and sidewalks
  
• Replace shattered plastic house numbers over garage
• Pick up a birthday gift for K--
• Fix fallen A/C register and attach headboard to bedframe
• Murder weeds growing in driveway, porch, and sidewalks
• Patch busted wood trim around bathroom door
• Caulk floor joints both bathroom
• Organize tool chest drawers
• Wash and put away three loads of laundry
• Paint over garage hail damage
• Take out the trash
• Do the dishes
• Email Cindy about the Consortium as a non-profit
  

And I made time for my 4.5-mile jog every morning, because with all that cerebral work going on, I needed some physical exertion to balance it out.

The problem, it turned out, was that 45 minutes jogging wasn't close to enough time to balance it out. I got started working on the lawn Friday morning, and found myself still working outside when it came time to go to dinner Friday night. Woke up Saturday, went for my jog, and figured since I was going to have to shower anyway, I should do a thing or two outside first.

By the end of the day Saturday (my forty-eight hours), I'd spent about fourteen hours sleeping, eight hours at business/social meals, and a hair over an hour (total) sitting at my computer. The other twenty-five hours I spent toiling -- repairing my house, cleaning, or working in the yard. And none of that was by choice or priority -- it just sort of happened. I was driven.

When everything was said and done, by the time I went to bed Sunday night, I'd completed 34 of the 62 items on my To Do list, including just half of the "Must Do" items. The finished list looked like this:

• Must Do
• Thursday night
• Write Sun/Mon/Tue blog posts for next week
• Prepare newsletter for Saturday
• Friday morning
  
• Mow the lawn
  
• Clean out the gutters
  
• Friday afternoon
• Write Thu/Fri/Sat blog posts for next week
• Set up blog review spreadsheet on GDocs
• Friday night
• Read Julie's blog posts
  
• Read Julie's blog posts
• Saturday morning
• Chainsaw some trees
  
• Paint hall and bathrooms
  
• Saturday afternoon
• Read Julie's blog posts
• Read Julie's blog posts
• Saturday night
• Edit and link next week's blog posts
  
• Prepare next Saturday's newsletter
  
• Sunday afternoon
• Email Julie about the Consortium
  
• Complete detailed descriptions of the Consortium in Wave
  
• Sunday night
• Write Sun/Mon/Tues blog posts for next week
  
• Outline blog posts for June
  
• Remember to Eat!
• Lunch with Dan (discuss Consortium as non-profit)
• Dinner with Austins (discuss Consortium network/software)
  
• Lunch with Courtney (recruit her to the Consortium)
• Dinner with Bruce (discuss Consortium business plan)
• Extra Credit (if I have free time)
• Recruit Carlos to the Consortium
• Social Writing
• Help Toby program BookMaker utility
• Get in touch with Doolin
• Email Julie about blog review
• Get Courtney her photos (from a Julie V shoot)
• Design novel template in GDocs
  
• Scan many things
• Edit/Link guest posts for Doolin
• Make chapters for Carlos's e-Book
• Review Carlos's other support requests
• Call OU Admissions department
• Email Shawn about the Consortium
• Finish Ivanhoe
• Email Courtney about her blog
• Contact Schwinn customer support
• Lowe's run
• Fix exterior lights
• Drop seed, weed killer, and fertilizer on lawn
• Clean out garage work area
• Put some stuff in the attic
• Convert Becca's and Bryce's books to e-Book format
• Read Becca's and Bryce's books
• Check out Courtney's new WIP on GDocs
  
• Write Thursday's Creative Copy Challenge post
• Reply to many comments on my blog and Doolin's
• Email Courtney about new photo policy at my blog
  
• Update About Page photos in color
• Clean up storm detritus on driveway, porch, and sidewalks
  
• Replace shattered plastic house numbers over garage
• Pick up a birthday gift for Kris
• Fix fallen A/C register and attach headboard to bedframe
• Murder weeds growing in driveway, porch, and sidewalks
• Patch busted wood trim around bathroom door
• Caulk floor joints both bathroom
• Organize tool chest drawers
• Wash and put away three loads of laundry
• Paint over garage hail damage
• Take out the trash
• Do the dishes
• Email Cindy about the Consortium as a non-profit

Flying Ice

Monday this week was a day made for disappointment. It always is, but this week was worse than most. After an ice storm lent me another four-day weekend, it was a real bummer to come back to the office. Nobody was in a great mood, and everybody had a lot of work that needed doing, to get caught up. I put in my nine miserable hours, packed up some extra reading to take home with me, and then called it a day.

The roads were pretty clear by then, except for the steep-walled piles of dirty gray slush spilling onto the sides, but the drive still posed some little risks. I felt my car slip a little turning onto MacArthur, and again as I pushed up the ramp onto the highway. It was nothing dangerous, really -- just little reminders that the road wasn't really dry.

I hardly needed them, though. My windshield was enough evidence of that, with the thin, semi-transparent patina of slush thrown up by the cars ahead of me. That got a lot worse when I got onto the highway, and I was leaning forward, waiting for another pass of my worn out wipers, when the car in front of me threw up more than just slush. A pebble the size of a BB flipped up and smashed against my windshield, inches from my nose.

The sound of it startled me -- surprisingly loud crack in the still of my car --and as I flinched back, I wondered if it had chipped the glass.

I first started driving in 1995, and I drove for fourteen years without ever getting a cracked windshield. I've certainly taken my share of pebble bombardment, but they make those suckers pretty strong. Still, the thought crossed my mind because, only a week earlier, gravel bouncing out of the back of a dump truck had put a big score in the driver's side glass right above the dashboard. First time in my life, and here came another pebble one week later.

And then the wipers blurred by, smearing away the muck, and they left behind a single glittering spot, ten inches above the week-old chip. I grunted in frustration, I rolled my eyes, I probably thought something mean about the driver of the dirty white Tercel.

But then a sarcastic smile twisted my lips. I shook my head and chuckled, and said, "I wonder if I constructed that." See, I believe in something called social constructionism, and one aspect of it is that the things we expect, the things we anticipate, are the things that are likely to show up in our reality. By worrying about my glass getting chipped, had I made it happen? It was a swift-passing thought. I sighed and let it go. Probably just coincidence. It's a funny old world, after all.

The words were still fresh in my mind, the smile still on my lips, when I heard the distant groan and rip just before a sheet of ice tore free from that same car. I'd seen it happen on my drive in that morning, and even once or twice already on my drive home, but this time it happened right in front of me. A blanket of ice and snow packed two-inches thick suddenly caught the wind, dancing like a kite up into the air for two seconds, three, and slashing back down to earth.

I was too close, though. I got in the way. The largest shard -- probably two feet across -- came stabbing straight down at me. I braked, I swerved, but there was no time. I caught a dozen pounds of ice dead center on the passenger side of my windshield, at sixty miles per hour. It boomed like an explosion, and the whole windshield shattered -- safety-glass holding the fractured bits in place, but ruined.

It was five o'clock on a Monday afternoon, northbound in the left-hand lane of one of the city's major thoroughfares, so I had sixty-MPH traffic right on my tail. As soon as I knew I was still alive, I put my foot back on the gas. My heart thundered, and I had to fight to catch my breath, but the windshield held. I had a small rectangle, maybe two feet by one, right at eye level on the driver's side where the glass was whole. It was enough to give me a clear view of the road, as long as I leaned forward. It was enough to get me home, anyway.

So I drove on, terrified every time another piece of ice flipped up into the air and wondering if the shattered windshield might give way yet. Ten miles still to go, and nobody else on the road cared how fragile my situation was. I just focused on breathing, focused on getting home safely.

And while I was at it, I tried my hardest to ignore that chip, right in front of my nose, marring the one bit of good glass left to me.

(I prepared this post according to the assignment description in this week's Creative Writing exercise over at UnstressedSyllables.com. I'd love any feedback you've got to give.)

Journal Entry: February 2, 2009

We ended last year with an honest-to-goodness blizzard that rolled in on Christmas Eve. Mom and Dad were here in town, staying at our place for the week before heading out to Germany on Christmas morning, and that ended up being quite an adventure. They made it, though.

Anyway, we had a repeat of that foul weather last week, when heavy ice started coming down on Thursday afternoon, followed by a thick coat of snow all Thursday night. I did end up going in to work on Thursday, but they let us out early and closed the offices on Friday.

That gave us a nice long weekend, trapped in the house. T-- has been sick with a respiratory virus for nearly a week now, so it was a good thing I was home to take care of the kids (especially in the mornings). We had fun, though. AB and I played out in the snow for half an hour on Friday, we started testing out bedtime stories, and she learned how to control my warlock's flying carpet in WoW.

XP and I worked on enunciation and word choice, motor control, and screaming unreservedly for no reason whatsoever. That was a little less fun.

We watched a bunch of Berenstain Bears cartoons with AB, and the first season of 30 Rock when she wasn't looking. I also played a lot of WoW.

Saturday night, like Noah sending the dove out from the ark, we ordered a pizza and were delighted when it arrived in a reasonable amount of time. Sunday morning we finally ventured out, meeting my little sister and her family at IHOP for lunch.

We were not the only people in town with that idea. Alas.

Anyway, we had no real problems on the roads, and afterward T-- dropped me and AB back at the house, and then went to do some grocery shopping. Sunday evening we had sandwiches, and finished off the second season of our show.

Then Monday morning it was AB's turn to be sick, and she was hacking something awful when I had to head to work. T-- seems to be on the mend, though, and it was only really bad for three days or so. So maybe AB will be better before the weekend.

Oh! On the drive home from work I had some serious drama, but that probably deserves a post of its own. I'll get that up as soon as I can. I did end up running some errands in the evening, including a trip to Walgreens where I learned we might have another ice storm coming. Yay!

Other than that, it's just things and stuff.

I Am a Writer

I've been a writer all my life. I started inventing worlds and stories when I was in first grade, and I started learning the mechanics of it all even before that, when my granddad taught me touch-typing on a battered old typewriter.

The Prologue

I first started thinking of myself as a writer in a sixth-grade English class, when I was supposed to write a one-page story incorporating a least half of our vocabulary words, and I wrote eight pages and used them all. I made that the first in a series of absurd detective stories that I developed over the course of the year. When I was twelve my family moved to the big city, and I dealt with the frightening upheaval in my life by writing my first novel. I wrote my classmates into the story to make friends.

When I was in high school I spent an afternoon patiently explaining to my dad that I didn’t need to go to college. My only goal in life was to be a writer, and I already knew how to write. I was well into my second novel by then, and I was marking up my Creative Writing teacher’s noir mystery in my free time. My dad's wisdom prevailed, though, and when I got to college, I discovered not only the limits of my understanding but also the real value of others’ ideas. I chose Oklahoma Christian University for its creative writing program, and took a writing class every semester for four years.

In the process I learned the rules of the craft, I learned to develop my narrative voice, and I learned how powerful a diversity of styles can be. I’ve since had the opportunity to coach my dad in creative writing, and I was able to teach him using some of the same methods I learned in that college program I’d once assured him I would never need.

The Process

Those methods have become more and more important in my life. They include everything from the intensive character development and plot architecture that I've used to build my Ghost Targets series, to the minute attention to mechanics and detail that makes me such a good Technical Writer (and pays for my two houses).

When I first started in the industry, I hated that I was selling out and getting a day job, and I spent a lot of energy separating technical writing from creative writing in my head. All I got out of that was a lot of heartache, and a couple novels that languished as unfinished drafts for years. I've recently come to appreciate the similarities in the two disciplines, and learned how to play to my strengths in both fields. As a result, I've got pretty much the same writing process for both.

I start with as much prewriting as I can reasonably do, whether that's real-world research or rough scene lists, but I always limit the amount of time I dedicate to that. When I've got enough material to put together a draft, I stop researching and start writing. I do a first draft start to finish, with as little editing as possible. When I'm done, I take a quick pass through the document to smooth some of the roughest edges, then hand it off to one or two test readers to get feedback.

From there, I go through multiple stages of dedicated revisions. I've talked about that elsewhere, but it's critical to the process. It also usually takes two to three times as long as the prewriting and writing stages combined, so I've got to dedicate time and energy to the review process from the very first, or I'll find myself in a real bind when deadlines start looming.

The Products

Honestly, I end up applying that process in nearly every type of writing I do. That includes my journal entries here, emails to my friends and coworkers, and my articles on Unstressed Syllables. I've used some of my training to create some extremely effective tutorials, and to prepare business letters and queries for all my many projects. I end up doing a lot of editing work for friends and family, too. All of it is good practice, and all of it depends on my continued dedication to quality writing.

It's rewarding, too. Just last week I was skimming through an old draft of an unfinished novel, looking for an illustration for my blog, and I accidentally got caught up in the narrative. Half an hour and two chapters later, I remembered what I was supposed to be doing, but I came away from that with a determination to get that novel cleaned up and in the hands of some readers. That's an incredible experience, stumbling across some long-forgotten scene and rediscovering the magic and creativity that helped make it happen in the first place.

Currently, that's where most of my energy is focused: getting all my old, unfinished projects up to code, and getting them in the hands of readers. That has me working simultaneously on a utopian near-future sci-fi and a dystopian near-future sci-fi,on a dry political think-piece masquerading as traditional fantasy and on a juvenile emo romance masquerading as traditional fantasy. And, of course, through it all I'm constantly creating new stories. I have a fourth Ghost Targets in the works, and half a dozen story ideas spawned from dreams or debates. I have a handful of non-fiction works germinating, and a rather significant investment in UnstressedSyllables.com. Oh yeah, and then there's the full-time job. No question about it, I am a writer.

(I prepared this post according to the assignment description in this week's Technical Writing exercise over at UnstressedSyllables.com. I also posted a link in the discussion board there, so you can feel free to leave comments here or there, depending what you want to discuss. I'd love any feedback you've got to give, though.)

Unstressed Syllables

This isn't really news to any of you, but I've spent most of the last month getting a new blog set up over at Unstressed Syllables.

I've told a couple people that I'd probably abandon my personal blog, but I don't think that'll actually happen. Not altogether, anyway. I've made the definite decision to give up on my efforts at daily blogging, but I still have a lousy memory and I still find much benefit in looking back on slices of my life from arm's distance, so I'll still be posting here as often as I reasonably can.

For the next month or so, as I get into the swing of things, I'd expect that to be a near-zero value. We'll see what actually happens.

In the meantime, come check out my blog. It's inspired by you, it's written for you, and it probably features some humorous and humiliating stories about things you've done in the past, so you'll need to show up from time to time to defend yourself. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

Other than that, it's just things and stuff.

The OC (Week 16)

This post is part of an ongoing series.

Final Exam

Two weeks ago, I wrapped up my Technical Writing class with a final exam. It was a little experimental (Courtney said more than once, "I've certainly never had a final like that!"), but it went perfectly.

In case I didn't mention it before, Courtney joined us for the final exam period. I asked the class if they were cool with that back in Week 15, and they insisted they had no problem. She wanted to come out of idle curiosity, mainly as a result of reading this blog, and I had no objections.

So she showed up Thursday afternoon, a couple minutes before one o'clock, and the vast majority of my students were already there and in their seats. I was at the front of the class, by the computer station, getting things ready for the class session, and she came timidly into the classroom, crossed in front of the blackboard, and asked me where she should sit that would be unobtrusive and out of the way.

I'm mean sometimes. I sent her to the chair at the teacher's desk, front and center.

Cookie Platter

I wasn't trying to be mean. It was really the only place I had for her. The students were arrayed on the outside of their inverted-U of tables, and though there was a table tucked in the middle of the room (where I'd sat while observing the presentations), I had big plans for the middle of the room, so I couldn't really send her there.

I was also standing at the computer station and not starting class for a very particular reason. I was buying time, waiting for all of my students to arrive, and also deliberately standing so as to conceal a cookie platter T-- had made for my students. I didn't want to spoil the reveal by having someone walk in late and spot a half-hidden cookie platter, y'know?

Anyway, once the classroom was full, I turned on the overhead projector with just the empty desktop of my school-issued laptop showing, and that got everyone's attention. All eyes snapped to the screen, and then I stepped back, brought forth the cookie platter, and headed to the table in the middle of the room to set it down.

I was halfway there when someone said, "Are those cookies?"

I explained that T-- had wanted to send cookies for my students all semester, but I'd kept objecting because I thought it would be too distracting. Then I finally relented on the one day when their participation counted for 10% of their grade. Hardly fair. Nobody complained, though.

I was in the grip of la grippe, so I left the cookies wrapped in their plastic and stepped back to the front of the room. "I need somebody else to unwrap them," I said, and about two heartbeats later Sean -- seated in the middle of the back row, and as far from the cookies as possible -- leaped over the tables to take care of business. He got them unwrapped, then passed the tray around, which was quite calm and orderly.

Chaos and Disorder

The next step was the one that denied Courtney a seat in the middle of the room. I told them I had their graded semester projects ready to return, and I'd call out their names. After they came to retrieve their grade sheets, they were to remain standing in the center of the room instead of returning to their seats. (That was an important step that turned out to be totally useless.)

Once everyone was standing in the middle of the room (and they were sort of packed in like livestock), I explained that we were going to divide up for the day's activity. Unlike previous activities where each group worked on its own version of the assignment, today's activity would require three different groups, working on different aspects of one product. So I explained that the table on the right would be for the Documentation Group, the table on the back would be for the Software Group, and the table on the left would be for the Publishing Group. I told them to take their best guesses which group would most suit them, and go sit down.

Everyone sat down pretty much exactly where they'd been before.

The Assignment

Next, I explained to them the assignment. Just as I've said here before, my goal was to have the students create a wiki to demonstrate their ability to learn a new document type without my guiding hand. So I pointed to the screen at the front of the room, that showed my blank desktop, and told them my goal was for them to have a full-featured wiki including the contents of all of their weekly tutorials up on that monitor by the end of the class period. By that point, it was a little over an hour and a half.

Then...I sat down at the front of the room. And I looked at them. I may have given a little bit of an indication what each group should do, but it certainly wasn't anything that could be described as "directions." I did ask a couple of my students on the back row if they'd completed wikis of their projects for extra credit (Sean and Will, both of whom had asked for permission to do that, and both answered that they had), and that was meant to give them a nudge toward helping the rest of the class figure it out. It worked.

Not right away, though. The next ten minutes were brutal. I had about two minutes of deer-in-the-headlights from the whole classroom, and then my two with experience (both in the Software Group) leaned their heads together and started talking, and got a couple others from the Software Group chiming in before too long. I listened to their chatter for a little while, to get an idea where they were headed, and then gave them a nudge in the right direction, and listened for a little while more.

The Software Group and the Publication Group ended up both being composed primarily of technical people, so by that point the Publication Group was pretty involved in the conversation, too. The Documentation Group (my English Majors) were sitting off on the right still waiting to find out what they were supposed to do.

So I finally addressed that. I explained to them briefly what a wiki was -- a type of simplified markup language -- and that they would need to take the highly-formatted, styled Word documents I'd used for their weekly tutorials, and convert them into flat text files with some simple markup. I suggested they get to work downloading the tutorials from the class website, figure out how they were going to distribute the workload, and then start making guesses as to how they would do the conversion. They wouldn't know for sure until the Software Group settled on a wiki platform, but they could do some prep work while they waited.

In Production

Then I headed back over to the Software Group, and I said, "What you'll probably want to do, first, is choose which wiki platform you're going to use--"

And Will cut me off to say, "We just did that."

I went on, "And then this group is probably going to divide up, half of you going to support the Documentation Group as they convert the existing documents into the right format, and half of you going to support the Publication Group as they figure out how to get those documents up for us to see, within the next hour."

They nodded, then immediately got to their feet. Will went one way, Sean went the other, and they became Management. It was kind of awesome.

After that, I was done. It was their final exam, after all. I sat at the front of the room and chatted with Courtney, eavesdropping on their discussions, but most of the corrections I would have made ended up getting caught by Will or Sean before I had the chance.

It was only a few minutes into that (maybe ten or fifteen), when I asked Will what address they were using, and Courtney was able to pull it up on her laptop. From that point on, while we were discussing writing or Wil Wheaton, or whatever, we were also scrolling through the wiki as it was under construction. I was impressed with the draft version. I was really impressed with the changes they had in place by the half-hour mark. And at the end of the period, while they were still scrambling to get a couple of the more complicated chapters put together, I asked Will to step up to my laptop and present the finished product to me.

He shook his head. "It's not ready yet!"

I said, "That's okay. Show me what you've got." I didn't say it in a menacing way, either. I was prepared to grade them based on what they'd finished, not the page or two that were still undone.

He wasn't satisfied with that, though. He said, "Give us a few more minutes. It's almost done."

As he said that, from one end of the Publication Group table I heard, "Five's done!" and down at the other end, "Seven should be up now." And Will scurried off to oversee the finishing touches.

In the end they all stayed a little bit late, just to present a polished product. It was phenomenal. It was so much better than I'd hoped for, especially given the short time limit.

(If you're curious, you may be able to see a copy of it here. I have no idea how long that site will be live, but it's there for now.)

I'd had some closing words prepped, to finish off the semester, and after seeing their work I wanted to go into detail with praise, but there was no time. All I could tell them is, "Well done! You've earned a one hundred. Thank you guys for being awesome!" And then I sent them on their way.

Retrospective

Knowing what I know now, I could have made the final session go a little more smoothly. I don't think I could have possibly gotten any better results, but I could have left the students a little more comfortable with their role. Then again, that's pretty much true for the whole semester.

And I'm not beating myself up for that. This was my first time teaching. Wow.

Anyway, one thing I experimented with there in the final -- dividing them into purpose-based groups -- is something I think I'd like to do from the start if I ever teach the class again. On day one, I'd divide them into those groups -- with those titles -- and let them rearrange through the course of the semester if they wanted, and sometimes divide them up in support roles and sometimes combine them, based on the project, but give them a chance overall to develop some sort of consistent group identity, apart from "we're sitting within arm's reach."

I do wish I'd had another assignment or two in there, and I wish I'd had in-class activities for nearly every class I didn't have one for. I put that down to limited prep time from being a first-timer, though. Same goes for the uncertainty of their schedule (flip-flopping on due dates), but I think I could be a lot more confident about that on a second go-round.

Apart from that...I'm awesome. I know the class was satisfactory to the powers-that-be, I think the class was useful to the student, and I'm amazed how much I gained from the experience. My students were all amazing people, and I'm glad I got to meet them. And, y'know, I discovered I could do something I never would have thought possible. It was bigger and better than NaNoWriMo. I'd never have guessed.

And that's it. Hope you've enjoyed the updates. Let me know if you have any questions. I'll let you know if they ask me back for more.

The OC (Week 15)

This post is part of an ongoing series.

Season Finale

We have officially left the regular season. Post-season takes place tomorrow. Or something like that. Whatever.

Week 15 marked the last week of regular classes for the semester, and we finished it by finishing up our presentations. Tuesday saw some technical difficulties, and Thursday saw some more, but the brightest minds in OC's IT department are in my class, so we got it all worked out.

A Polite Reminder

We finished up on Tuesday with fifteen minutes to spare, and I just let them out early. As I headed toward the podium to pack up my laptop I said offhand, over my shoulder, "See you Thursday."

Then I stopped, turned to glare them all in the eye (that's right, thirty-two eyes all at once, it's a professor thing), and I said with a dread pronunciation, "See you Thursday."

A chuckle went around the class, but I got numerous affirmations from those who'd missed the previous Thursday, and then they fled the room.

It worked. Thursday we had a full class, and I was able to give some last-minute clarification concerning the Final with the confidence of knowing everyone was there. That was nice.

Semester Projects

Thursday was also the due date for Semester Projects. They'd haggled a midnight deadline earlier in the semester, so that held and they had until the very last seconds of Thursday to get the document turned in for full credit. Someone else (I'll let you guess who) had worn me out with his arguments and convinced me to accept late work, too, but I instituted a 5% per day penalty for it.

There was some discussion whether that should be pro-rated, or lump sum, and the arguments on both sides of the debate were pretty compelling. I ended up pro-rating, because I like my students.

Anyway, I got all the projects over the weekend, and they're now all graded. They turned out awesome. I remember that being one of the things the class was most famous for when I took it, and at the beginning of the semester when I asked my students what they knew about the class they were signed up for, the project was the only bit any of them had any clear ideas on.

I had some concerns that the reputation of the semester project might fade with a new professor at the helm, but for now I think it's safe. They did some really cool stuff, and nearly all of the finished projects are going to be terribly useful. Several of them will even be useful to me.

Homework

I made that all sound like a lot of fun, but those four words up there -- "they're now all graded" -- actually represent a pretty miserable experience. Who knew semester projects could be such work for professors? Both of my parents are teachers, so I've heard grumbling and complaining about having stuff to grade all my life, but I didn't really get it, until I found myself with a mountain of stuff to grade.

It's no fun at all. Just horrible. I really don't recommend it. If you're teaching a class, go all California-hippie on them and don't do grades. Or quantum physicist and assign grades completely at random. That would have to be better than actual analytical numeration. Blech.

(I've also been coming down with a cold in the same days that I've been going through that process, so it could be having an impact on my attitude. Time will tell, I suppose.)

Anyway, it's done. It's done and it's done and it's done. I've got Finals on Thursday, and I'm confident everyone will show up, and the minute that's over, I should be able to turn in final grades and be done with the class. How cool is that?

More next week (or, conceivably, tomorrow).