Baton Rouge Week 30

Hi all
We started teaching this week. It basically means meeting your students and telling them that there is more work to do than they want to do. It was also a week of getting our car back from the body shop. Drive carefully, it is expensive to knock off a mirror and scrap the door.
We did manage to see a movie with a good message that will probably be missed by most people. It is called “Not Easily Broken”. It is geared to mainly a black audience. It has a Christian context and a lot of people will probably just let it slide by.
This was also one of those weeks when I had several deadlines to meet. I had to finish a submission proposal for next year’s National Council of Teacher of English conference. The deadline is always right after Christmas and just when classes are starting. I managed to get that off my plate yesterday. Then the Dean wanted a 2 page version of my academic vita. She asked Thursday and needed it by Monday. I finished that as well. So, those two things are done and I finished all the course work planning I need to do. Now I need to finish the first year review. I have to catalogue what I have done since I have been here. They make you start building the file for your tenure review from the very beginning.
I have two more small paper things to do this week, so I will take a deep breath and start again.
Dana and I got a revise and resubmit on an article that we sent out about two months ago. One review hated it, but gave out very good feedback. The second one liked it. The third seem indifferent, but suggested that we needed more international references. If we want to turn it around they gave us three months. We would like to have it done by the end of February. We have some work to do on that project that I hope to start this week.
I have started work on The ALAN Review work. We had to have pictures taken for the next issue and submitted a brief biography that will be in the next issue. I guess that will serve as a formal introduction to the work we will be doing.
It was another cold week here—20 to 30 at night and 40-60 during the day. Nevertheless, several trees are beginning to flower. I will try to add some pictures.
We think the remodeling on the apartment fire will be done this week. We have been fortunate on that account. We have had to front some of the money, but our insurance has been good. It doesn’t look like we will be out any money out of our own pockets after everything is said and done. Speaking about insurance, you should all check and make sure that your house policy covers replacement value of things and not depreciation value.
Our stake will be hosting a displayed called the “Reflections of Christ” www.reflectionsofChrist.org It was at the Mesa temple visitor center for a long time and has just finished up at the Washington D. C. Temple. It will be here for two weeks. The opening night is a fireside with the photographer and the closing night is a musical performance. Apparently some original music was composed to accompany the photographs. Mark Mabry is the photographer and there is a lot more information at the website. This is an exciting opportunity to share the gospel. We hope a lot of our neighbors will be able to attend the fireside or the display during the week. Oh! I forgot the missionaries were over for dinner and then I went with to visit Sister Lamb. She is a woman in the ward whose husband died just a couple of years ago. We worked as an accountant and property manager for years. But is passion was making violin and fiddles. He has made instruments for classical players and for county players as well. Bill Monroe played one of his fiddles and so has Ricky Skaggs and Roy Acuff. She has about a hundred instruments that she is contracting with broker to sale them as a group. Anyway, I thought it was interesting to get to know her a little better.
This is Dana. Yesterday, for the first time, I taught a class in my field, preparing principals. It is a master’s program for teachers who are interested in getting an endorsement as a principal along with their masters. It was fun to finally get to do what I was trained to do in practice and with my PhD. This class will mean a lot more work for me this semester (I have to visit 16 schools where these people are doing an internship), but I think I will like doing it. This new class and my work with the Relief Society means I have to be very structured with time. Your dad and I both thought, however, that it would be best for our physical and mental health to start working out again. We joined the LSU rec center and played racquetball this Friday and Saturday. I am about a 5 out of 10 on the soreness scale, which means being way out of shape. We hope that we will get in a rhythm to regularly workout.
We love you all. Take care of each other.
Love Dad and Dana