Back up

Backing up your computer information is a lot like being the person who becomes extraordinarily healthy following a heart attack.  People, who have lost all their information once, commonly become the people who back up their computer.  I have never lost my computer information due to a crash, but the fear of losing my entire dissertation when writing it many years ago, taught me to perform backups.  And it has paid off.  While working for a publishing house several years ago, my computer died.  Well passed resuscitation, much less resurrection, if all my data had been on my computer I would have lost months of work.  As it turned out, it took longer to drive to the store, select, purchase, and set up the new computer than it did to restore my information. 

            What if we could back up our lives like our information?  What if we could simply restore at a particular point, skipping over or rewinding, something that was particularly discomforting or annoying?  Actually, many folks with kids have a living, breathing backup, who will recall at the most unfortunate of moments, recently or distant occurring events. 

            Nope.  There is no backup.  We can prepare for what seems inevitable, and we should prepare – but that is no guarantee.  And it doesn’t really matter if you lock yourself up in a room or run uphill during a hailstorm.  There is no back up. 

This is a thin place. 

           

Keeping up to date

My calendar. 

            I may not be someone categorized as an “early adopter.”  I don’t always have the latest technology.  I live in the land of “you try it first, and tell me what doesn’t work.”  And eventually, at least in the second or third wave, I will get the almost latest gadget.  Except for the calendar. I just can’t seem to go electronic with the calendar.  Oh, I have tried.  I have the iPhone calendar and Google calendar and virtually every virtual calendar recommended by the aggregate app recommenders.  But just can’t seem to go there. 

            I must be able to touch my calendar.  I must be able to hold it my grubby mitts and see all seven days of the week or all 28/30/31 days of the month.  And even then that may not be enough.  I have criteria for the paper calendar/planner/organizer/journal which makes finding the “perfect” one nearly impossible.  And when I do it tends to be bigger than a house.  Well, that’s an exaggeration.  But it’s bigger than my purse, and too heavy to ever be stuck into my carry-on for travel.  And this is a beta-calendar, so I am not sure that I will adopt it for next year. 

            And it’s me, I know it is.  I don’t have that demanding of a schedule.  Well, I do, but not outside of the classroom.  And my classroom schedule is so demanding I can’t even put it in my calendar.  It exists on a chart in my office and directs me each day to where I am supposed to be.  So if my principle time demand, teaching, doesn’t even make it onto my calendar what is the deal?  I have gone back and forth between a be-all-do-all version, and multiple smaller individual components.  And this is nothing new – I have been pursuing the perfect calendar thingee for years.

            Confession.  Giving some consideration to creating my own planner/calendar/ organizer/journal. 

            Further confession.  I do have some sense of how long that will take me and I may not want to devote that much time and energy to something that is so timeless that it only lasts a year. 

Summer school

Crazy as it may seem, summer also means summer school.  And since this is a non-traveling summer for me, which also means it’s a teaching summer for me.  Easy to balance, one summer has to pay for the next summer.  And I really like summer school.  No seriously.

            First, the students are special.  And I don’t mean special as in challenged in any way.  These are seriously committed folks.  They are giving up valuable play time or free time to either work on getting ahead or catching up for past mistakes.  This also can mean they are demanding in ways students in the regular semesters never are.  Summer students have deep, probing, insightful questions and they want well structured responses.  Summer students hunt you down to meet with you.  I set aside some time for summer students to drop in and meet me, and HOLY COW they showed up. 

            Second, part of what makes them so special is that there aren’t quite so many of them.  During the regular semesters, I am fairly certain students are trucked in to take classes.  I have so many of them, and in so many different places, I can only keep up with each individual class, not the aggregate of them.  In the summer you have these polite manageable little classes, which you have to spend lots of time with because the time frame is so compressed.    

            Third, you get a real sense of all being in this educational process together.  Students and teachers.  During the regular semesters it has this us vs. them, teacher vs. student, sort of feel, which may be due in part to the oppressive numbers of them, students.  But in the summer the sense is we are all here to get through this together.  We start at A and in half the time, and some cases a quarter of the time, we will end up at Z.  I always tell my students, regardless of the class size or time frame, that I expect them to make an A in the class.  Only during the summer does that ever happen.

            Finally, it helps me define mercenary.  That whole question “what would you do for money?”  Yeah, I teach summer school.  Face to face.  In the classroom.  I commit to getting up, out and in the classroom during the summer.  It is insane.  It is mercenary. 

Exercise, energy and heat

Summer in the south.  What in the world am I doing here? 

            I am a first generation US citizen, born to immigrants from Northern Europe, Scotland to be specific.  When asked why my father would have chosen North Louisiana as a place to settle, I can only offer that his sister married an Air Force enlisted man who was stationed here.  No one voluntarily lands where the summer temperature and humidity are roughly equal for two to three months of the year.  The national weather folks actually issue warnings suggesting that you should not engage in outdoor activities when the humidity exceeds the temperature.  That pretty much describes the better part of July and all of August.  Except of course when the temperature gets to 100 degrees (40 plus for my friends that have converted to metric); humidity is measured as a percentage, so theoretically it can’t exceed 100.  Theoretically!  Because if you have ever been in Louisiana in August you know that cement actually sweats.  And I will admit this is not the warmest place I have been.  Cambodia has Louisiana beat.  But not by much, but we did impress the Cambodians with our adaptation to their humidity. 

            The key is the adaptation.  You must have your body acclimate to the extremes in temperature.  You can’t just jump into summer; you must ease your body into the season.  Gradually introduce yourself to hot air so wet with humidity that it feels like you are in a humidifier.  And you must adapt your activities.  For example, most people will not leave their homes or places of business between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. except to enter another air conditioned environment or a swimming pool.  Local schools begin marching band practice in August, at 6 a.m.  The heat can be so oppressive that it steals your breath.  Anyone found outside engaging in any activity in late afternoon will be assumed to be crazy or “not from here.”  Mad dogs and Englishmen. 

            And an early start isn’t always the answer.  I walk every morning.  Every morning.  Partly because I need the exercise.  Partly because my dog needs the stimulation.  We walk three laps around the complex, about 1.3 miles.  Some mornings it is so hot Lily tries to convince me as we pass the house for the second time that we have already done three laps.  Some mornings it is so hot, I believe her.  A new twist on morning exercises is my running.  In an effort to build stamina for future endeavors I have taken up running.  Currently I am up to 50 minutes of continued running effort.  And in this heat, it also means that I am preparing for a wet T-shirt contest, because one of the things I am best at is sweating.  And it’s not just my t-shirt.  The other morning my socks were so wet, I left little sock prints as I walked through the house. 

            Thanks for summer.  Where is November? 

Not easily surprised

I have a friend that says I know everything.  I argue that I don’t.  I simply have had a variety of experiences that contribute to a broad knowledge base.  I will admit that I am a good person to have on your trivia team, but I don’t know everything. 

But what I typically know, is what is about to happen.  It’s not that I can predict the future, but experiences that you have had, can lead you to make a fairly accurate assessment of what will occur.  Consider it situational profiling.  Typically I am very good at situational profiling, and therefore, I am not easily surprised. 

So imagine my surprise when I was surprised no less than three times over the past week. 

1.       A friend of mine was present in worship at my local church and was introduced by the pastor.  He was there to give an award, a rather prestigious, significant award to someone.  I was so excited because I KNEW that he was giving the award to the mission director.  You can’t imagine my shock when he said my name.  I was stunned.  Surprise.

2.      The worship planner for annual conference asked me to be the deacon that processed in with the Holy Bible for the opening worship session.  I was honored.  Two days prior to annual conference we were given the order of worship, which includes the information that not only am I processing, I am holding the Bible open for the bishop to read from, and sending the gathering forth after worship.  I don’t actually like to do things that draw attention to myself.  I prefer to slip around the margins and shadows and work quietly and unnoticed.  Surprise. 

3.      Did I mention I don’t like to draw attention to myself.  Yes, I did.  So imagine my overwhelming joy when the Bishop called me to the platform – before the entire session of Annual Conference to say farewell, since I was no longer serving from the conference office.  NOT.  So much for the shadows.  Spotlight.  At least twice during annual conference.  Surprise. 

At least God’s grace had me out of the building when I was called to the platform for the third time during annual conference.  Enough of the surprises.