Contrary to popular belief among my friends and family, I categorically do not “sit around and do nothing all summer”.
Here’s a brief list of my summer activities:
- Looking for jobs. I have a lead on a part time tutoring job for the fall. No leads in the legal profession.
- Prepare for the upcoming school year
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- I studied for, and took, the Oklahoma Curriculum Test for teaching Spanish. If I passed, I’ll add that subject to the others on my teaching certificate.
- Read books and articles on educational theory and practice, mostly, this summer, on foreign language teaching.
- Study the Spanish language. This is related to the last item, but also something that has been ongoing for the last several years.
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- Reading and translating back into English “El leon, la bruja, y el ropero”
- Reading the daily mass Bible readings in Spanish
- Working through “Spanish in 32 Lessons” by Adrienne
- Reading “Spanish for Educators
- Trying to improve my chess game. My rating is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 when playing correspondence style (i.e., with time controls of 3-7 days). Over the board, closer to 600. But, then again, I rarely play over the board in tournament games that generate rating points.
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- Playing multiple games at gameknot.com
- Reading Chess Life Magazine
- Writing
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- DaveTown blog – not updated nearly enough
- Footballs Are Round blog – more activity than usual during the World Cup
- 3rd Degree Website – Weekly column during the soccer season
- Book project – getting started on a non-fiction idea that I’ve had knocking around in my head for a while.
- Getting in shape. I have made very little progress in this area. I blame my wife’s good cooking. And my total lack of enthusiasm for exercise. But I’m getting better at it. My goal is 100 sit-ups and 50 push-ups a day.
- Reading. This summer mostly the works of the Stoic Philosophers.
- House stuff. I’m not that handy around the house, but I can, in fact, clean and organize when the urge strikes me.
- Computer projects
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- I’m trying to learn a little about Linux by messing with Ubuntu and Edbuntu
- I’m constantly trying to mess with the HTML and PHP settings on my blogs, but usually not very successfully.
So there.
