Starting over

Its Spring. A time of new beginnings. A time to enjoy beautiful weather. A time to make the producers of allergy medications filthy rich. Ahhhhh....  :-)

In the spirit of new beginnings I've been having a good time making a fresh start with my personal life. I've been on a couple dates in the past few weeks. I've gone to a gathering of friends to watch a session of General Conference. And this past Monday I went to my first Single Adults' activity. We had a lesson and played volleyball. I'm pretty sure I fell down more than anyone else there.  :-P  One odd thing is that I think that I was probably one of the youngest people there. Yes, that I wasn't used to. But I did have a great time! And I even just sent a message on facebook to one of the girls that I met there asking her out on a date. I'm feeling more confident all the time with this socializing stuff.  :-)

Another new beginning is the new job that I have just agreed to take! Starting this Fall (or possibly this Summer), I'll be working as an instructor of Spanish and Pedagogy at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith!  :-D  I'm really excited!  And once I finish my dissertation I will be automatically bumped up to the rank of Assistant Professor!  :-)  Yep, the Lord keeps His promises, and life is good!

Though I am still sore from the volleyball.

A long day at the airport

I was scheduled to fly out to Ft. Smith yesterday, Thursday, for a campus visit today, Friday. Unfortunately I had a scheduled layover in Dallas yesterday, and Dallas had some thunderstorms and the threat of tornados. So, at first they kept putting off the start of the flight, they even boarded us at one point and had us wait on the runway for quite a while. Then they deplaned us, and eventually they announced that all flights in and out of Dallas for the remainder of the day, Thursday, had been canceled. At this point I had already been at the airport for about seven hours. I now had an option, I could call and leave a message for someone with the airline to call me back to help me reschedule, and head back to my apartment to wait, or I could stand in a very, very long line for the same kind of assistance at the ticket booth. Well, I really wanted to see if I could get a flight that would arrive by noon the following day, Friday, so I decided to stick it out in the line. About three hours later I finally got through the line and had the opportunity to talk to the gentleman behind the counter, Gary. Well, unfortunately the soonest Gary could get me on my way was early Saturday. I had fortunately already discussed this possibility with the Chair at the university where I'm going to be doing the visit, so I knew that I should get something for Sunday instead so that I can do the interview on Monday. Unfortunately the only thing they had left for Sunday was for very early in the morning. I took it, of course. I'm just not looking forward to getting up at 3:30am on Sunday. But considering the situation, things went really well! I wasn't stuck in a different city, everyone (passengers and crew) stayed very friendly throughout the ordeal. I was able to reschedule with both the airline and the university with no trouble at all! Plus now I have more time to prepare for my campus visit.  :-)  Oh, and my laptop is still working!  :-D  (I had dropped it a few feet at one point and it chipped about an inch off of a corner, but everything still works great!) Yes, things didn't work out quite as I had hoped, but thanks to the blessings and guidance of the Lord (I was prompted to make the right calls every step of the way, even though I know that I personally, if left to my own devices, would have made other choices) they worked out, and really they worked out quite well considering the circumstances!

Smiles

When I was working on my MA at UGA I remember that several times I got comments like: "You always look so happy." I remember smiling all the time!

Unfortunately, thanks to a negative experience with another university and then the dissolution of my marriage, I have noticed that I don't smile much anymore. It's even gotten to the point where I will sometimes pray just to be able to smile.

Well, the past few days I have been blessed with several great reasons to smile!

I was interviewed last week for a position as a supervisor here at UT, and I will be interviewed this coming week for a lectureship at OU! Yesterday I had a very nice time on my first date since the divorce. And today I had the opportunity to substitute in nursery!  :-D  I love those little kids! For the first half hour or so I even had the opportunity to carry around the youngest one because he was very tired. Feeling my arm and back get sore from carrying a little one, and having him drool on my shoulder, really helped me feel happy! And then, when his dad decided to join us and start carrying him, I had a great time with the other little ones! We played with toys and read stories, and towards the end two of them were running up to me, and throwing their arms around me and hugging me as hard as they could.  I felt like a dad again!  :-) I look forward to spending this summer with my kids! I miss and love them very much!

A Good Day

Today was a very good day!

When I got up this morning I was blessed with some inspiration on how to teach my Sunday School class this Sunday, after I've been praying and thinking about it all week.

Later this morning I had a very nice business breakfast for about an hour and a half with a very important person in the textbook industry who is very interested in my work. (And the food was good too!)

I made good progress with my newest game today. It will be an online, multiplayer grammar review game. I always feel great satisfaction when I finally overcome one of those programming obstacles that has been driving me crazy for several hours. (A couple days ago, after about 6 hours of frustration, I finally figured out that the problem was that I had typed "<" instead of "<=", go figure.)

Speaking of my games, when I was walking into the office today, several of the other instructors stopped me to thank me for the games I have created, and they told me that when their students ask how to review, they send them the links to my games.  :-)  It's always good to feel like the effort that I've been making is appreciated!

The biggest bonus of today happened when I went to administer the listening portion of the final exam to my class. They gave me a round of applause...before and after the exam! They also gave me a very nice thank-you card and some delicious cookies! I have never had a class do something like that for me before. It was very nice! This class has been a lot of fun this semester, because of the great group of students that I had!

It's so nice to be blessed by the Lord!