From The Back Row

Craziness ensues this week with presentations, papers and exams.  Juggling three classes with their own independent workloads is a challenge, but not unbearable.  I couldn’t imagine a full work schedule on top of this, so that’s worth noting.  I have some pictures up on the Flickr site (link in right column of this page).  Academically I’ve never done this well (not over yet though…), so we’ll see.  I don’t regret coming back at all and whether this is Summer #1 of 3 or 4, this setup works well (driving across, living on-campus, full load of classes, driving back).  It’s a compact timeframe and the classes move along quick enough and have achievable production demands so that everything comes together in the end.

So, check out the new snaps of my dorm room and next week I’ll grab some shots of campus and some of my new local favorites.  Classes wrap August 4th, then it’s off to Jacksonville that afternoon, so check back for daily coverage of “The Trip Back 2006″.  There are all new cities on the return trip including Atlanta, Memphis, Dallas and Amarillo, wrapping up with the Pub Crawl in Vegas.

Alright, so it’s a little past the halfway point, July 2nd and there’s news to report.  The first session ended with a whimper as I had an exam on Reading Day and an exam on Finals Day.  My 3rd class for the session has a take-home test and book report due no later than June, 2007 – so needless to say, I’ve taken an Incomplete (as have many in the class – he didn’t get us the exam until 3 days before the session concluded).  Academically speaking, the scorecard is as follows:  Media Law, B-  and Intro to Sport Administration, A.  Including the previously mentioned Incomplete, I’m at 3.35 for the session pending the outcome of that other class.

The 2nd Session started on Wednesday, June 28th and I did some shuffling.  First, I dumped ‘History of Western Civ I’ in favor of a required ‘Intro to Computers’ class.  I kept ‘Organizational Behavior’ but sadly ‘The French Woman Mystique in Cinema’ had to go, so I replaced it with another Sports Admin class – ‘Sport Governance’ – which details the hierarchies of several different sport organizations.  The schedule is a little choppy – Mon-Thurs 8:30a-11:55, Fri 8:30-9:55a, Mon&Wed 6-9:30p – but it’s manageable.  Pending whether I come back for classes in January and March, next summer is shaping up to be Math and Spanish and two Colloquia classes (required for this wacky Lib Arts degree I’m getting).

Between sessions I visited Key Largo, bought a stained glass parrot lamp, took a glass-bottom boat ride and ate some cooked dolphin… and that was just one day!

The work schedule hasn’t exactly, um, worked out down here.  This is what likely happens in any city when you make yourself available to a crewer for baseball in May.  Can’t say as I really miss it much, but it’ll be good to get back into the flow come August.