(Disclaimer: long, philosophical, personal, angsty post ahead.   Read on if you like, but you've been warned.)

So, I'm reading a book right now that isn't work-related (gasp!).  The book is I'll See You Tomorrow, written by Heather Thompson Day and Seth Day.   It's a book about relationships.   It's not necessarily the first book I'd pick up to ( Read more... )

Last week, I caught a student plagiarizing in one of my classes.

The details aren't important.  (I really shouldn't share the details anyways, because of privacy laws and good ethical practice.)   But, as usual, dealing with the case sent me into a bit of a funk.  Those of you who know me know that I take such cases seriously --- and a little ( Read more... )

So ... I've had no heat in my office at school for, oh, the last month or so.  Folks have been working on the problem pretty diligently.   It's one of the joys of working in a (*cough*) historic building.

Luckily, there's a common department lounge across from my office, so I've been hanging out there with my laptop during office hours or ( Read more... )

So, this essay started in my head last week.

Those of you with ecclesiastical backgrounds know that Advent has started.   And with Advent, churches dig out the Advent wreath and make the lighting of the candles a part of each week's service.

But, of course, there are rules about how you light them.  Which led to this meme which I saw (and ( Read more... )

Sometimes, you stumble across something that confirms an observation you've had for some time, but didn't know how to express.

Yesterday, I was pressed into mowing the lawn for the first time in ... well, it's been awhile.   (Living with adult children and a wife who enjoys working outdoors means that I'm usually spared this particular chore.)   So ( Read more... )

I'm old enough to remember being enchanted as a child by trips to the local filling station.

• The magic of having someone come up your car and ask you what kind of service you want ... and watching them clean your windows free of charge.
• The fascination of watching the mechanical dials spin around at different rates, and figuring out for the ( Read more... )

I watched an automobile accident happen this morning, right in front of me.

I was driving around the area this morning, running errands.  (Okay, I was coming back home after running out to be the first to find a geocache that had just posted.)  I was stopped at a major intersection: a five-lane road intersecting at a light with a three-lane road, ( Read more... )

I really should be doing other work right now, but I can't get past this.

This is probably a follow-up to my earlier rant.  So be it.

Here's excerpts from three different conversations I had yesterday.

• Email from a student who's been out sick for a week: "Due to the inconvenience of me being out sick, I now have plenty of work ahead of me.   I ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I'm having one of those moments when several seemingly unrelated areas of my life all seem to be talking about the same topic.   Which might mean that God is trying to teach me something.

So, time to start writing my thoughts and seeing what comes of it ...

( Read more... )