That was ONE.FAST.WEEK!!!

The big news here is the heat.  It is truly unbearable.  It is already hot when I leave between 8 and 9 am and being outside at all is just unbearable after more than 2 minutes.  There is no relief in the near-future, but accuweater lists NEXT Sunday (the 31) as "not as hot" and 85.  It is like this from Kansas over and even in Maine.  That is insane.  And what is more insane is the longevity.  I feel so badly for those who do not have air conditioning.


This week has been a whirlwind.  I am being trained on rating departmental assessments.  It is really a lot of intensive work and concentration because we use rubrics and there is subjectivity involved. I am one of 8 faculty for the entire campus doing this and I am also the youngest, so you can imagine my nervousness.    We are all in pairs with a person who has rated these reports before and after rating three (each takes a couple hours), we then adjudicate if there are major discrepancies.  My biggest concern as been that I would rate differently from my partner, but we are calibrated very well together.  Our ratings have been consistently well within valid scoring, so that has been a relief.  It is exhausting to have to be that intently concentrated though.  I come home wiped-out and then I have single-mom Asher duty till he finally falls asleep around 11.  I am not far behind him.  Next week is when this job ends and then I have about 2 weeks that will be more leisurely before I start back full-time with students, teaching, labs, etc.

Here is Asher

Asher is communicating and talking very well, he can count to 5 with no help, then he skips around.  He is learning his alphabet and he LOVES singing songs with motions.

Valerie is going to North Carolina for the week starting tomorrow.  We will miss her.  She is also finishing her Personal Progress for Young Women.  It has been organized so that the girls in our ward with rushing through it all pretty fast and I was not on-board with that, but it turns out that Valerie will be finishing right along with the rest of the girls, but at our own pace and doing our own projects.  That has been really great.  I hope she re-visits the values for the next couple years.  They are really special.

Thanks to everyone who has helped her complete this project.

Matt is working Saturday and Sunday this week, so that will be 12 straight days for him.  I feel really badly about that.  I suppose it is important to remember what a blessing a job is.