TITLE: Half Past Summer
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 29, 2010  3:22 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
As department head, I teach only one course each
semester, not the three that is standard for our
faculty.  The past academic year has been a bit
unusual, though, with a load that kept me busy,
busy, busy.  In the fall, I
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2009-12.html#e2009-12-21T07_37_07.htm">
   taught Software Engineering</A>,
a course I had never taught before.  My spring load
included not only
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-04.html#e2010-04-15T20_50_56.htm">
   Programming Languages</A>
but also ten weeks of
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-01.html#e2010-01-11T20_41_31.htm">
   teaching Cobol</A>
two hours a week.  I've taught Cobol many times
before, but not for over fifteen years.  Then,
to top it all off, I taught my first May term
course, an
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-06.html#e2010-06-04T16_38_14.htm">
   agile software dev course</A>
that met two hours every day for four weeks.

All of this was fun for the teacher in me, but no one
turned down the spigot of administrative work pouring
into my office.  As a result, the year felt something
like a treadmill.  Then I spent a week digging out of
a pile of undone work,
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-06.html#e2010-06-24T08_04_28.htm">
   eight days on vacation</A>,
and another week plus digging out of a new pile of
undone work.  With the delivery of faculty salary
letters, I am ready to begin summer.

Fall classes begin in eight weeks -- a blink of an eye.
-----