Wow, that was intense.  I somehow finished everything on that 10 bid 1 even though I stayed up until 2AM to do it (though in fairness all that caffeine from the workout drink means I was gonna stay up that late anyway).

Let’s set up the next 10 bid 1 because this is amazing!

• Get in touch with Jason about summer
• Redo tutor.prionspace.net for video and for home tutoring ~
• Quidditch drive chart and writing √
• Play ZAngband √
• Create new shelves and order shelf studs online (project canceled due to budgetary reason)
• Practice kata √
• Read something fun √
• More Rock Band!
• Contact Patrick and get oriented for HS2 passages √
• 5 Minute Lesson

I don’t really think I’m going to make it this time…

Proposed schedule:

• Mon: Stuff
• Tues: Stuff
• Weds: Stuff
• Thurs: Quidditch and whatever else
• Fri: Shopping, tutor.prionspace.net, contact Patrick and 5ML
• Sat: 4th of July Exalted and Quidditch (also CONTACT JASON)
• Sun: Austin Quidditch?? (also read and rock band apparently)

Future targets: poster/photos, paint snitch armbands, get more Velcro fabric & shorts, prep Nate’s lessons, put music on laptop

New 10 bid 1 for 6/22-6/28

• Refill asthma medications √
• Attend online thing, acquire amazon card √
• Medicate cats √ (Applied Thursday June 25th)
• 5ML intro video √
• Make all Quidditch drive charts √
• New Sorcery Clans √
• Piano before Sunday √
• Clean bathroom √
• Create custom veggie mixes √
• Prep new snitch shirt & shorts & tail √

Sidenote: intended uses for Amazon card:

• Great Book of Amber √
• Yellow and dark green headbands √
• Lightning charger √
• Darth Bane trilogy (not so much)

Estimated schedule:

• Mon: Quidditch scoring and laundry and quidditch gear
• Tues: Continue Quidditch scoring, also online thing with Sapling
• Weds: Cleanup, finish Quidditch scoring, shopping, then evening scout quidditch (?)
• Thur: More cleanup, make snitch gear, medicate cats if not already done
• Fri: Scorcery clans!
• Sat: Quidditch! Then other stuff that needs doing
• Sun: Exalted!

If I can complete all 10 items on this list this week I have earned 1 blue chip, if not I collect instead 1 red chip.

• Clean out office and collect books √
• Clean closet and create book organization structure √
• Complete all Quidditch analysis (I don’t really think this is possible, but I can at least try to get the drive data?) √
• Read Double Edged Secrets √
• Play Rock Band √
• Play Massive Chalice √
• Construct catio furniture √
• Make Victoria Quidditch video(s)
• Make Victoria Quidditch business cards √
• Make podcast √

Plus, of course, the daily workouts  😀  Let’s go!

TIMELINE

• Mon: video games
• Tues: Workout + Quidditch video
• Wed: More Quidditch? also clean + home stuff
• Thur: More cleaning + Lowes+ Catio + evening meeting
• Fri: Podcast + Business cards + Quidditch vids?
• Sat: Quidditch!
• Sun: Austin Quidditch!  SO WORTH IT!

Things that need doing soon (either this week or next week):

• Get new asthma meds
• Medicate cats

Here stands the massive to-do list.  From it I will construct smaller to-do lists on the whiteboard.  Anything marked with an asterisk is slated to be completed before May 18th, which is when summer school starts.

• Bio2404 Core Class Assessment spreadsheet*
• HS2 Passages x3* (1 of 3)
• Write and create “Graduation” *
• Exalted: WWOF prep and One-Shot to be named
• Finish up Hanging On video*
• Work on A&P Podcast
• Prep 2401 labs*
• Write 2401 lab exams*
• Prep 2306 lectures
• Revive 5 Minute Lessons
• Complete victoriaquidditch.org*
• Quidditch business cards
• Quidditch how to play video
• Quidditch mugshots/bios/pictures
• Read karate and WW2 books
• Read Inheritance Cycle
• Clean office
• Prep Blackboard for summer*
• Prep Blackboard for fall
• Watch Daredevil on Netflix

Plus the usual laundry, errands, etc. including the shopping list on the whiteboard already.  Keep populating the to-do list!

I hear tell that faculty can take classes at VC for free.  Need to check in with HR about how this works.  I’m going to compile the list of classes that catch my eye here.

• PHED 1110: Self Defense (currently can’t take it because it’s TR evening)
• COSC 1437: Programming Fundamentals II (Java) (Mon/Wed evening fits schedule, may be a lot of commitment for fall though)
• MUSI 1182: Class Piano (only offered in Spring semesters apparently, darn)
• MUSI 2181: Class Piano Part 2 (offered in Fall semesters, could follow up part 1)
• EMT Certification (can’t seem to find easy info on class registration, may be through a different system)
• ARTS 1316: Drawing I and ARTS 1317: Drawing II (currently conflict with work)
• ARTS 2346: Ceramics I (Mon/Wed evening fits schedule, may be a lot of commitment)
• PHED 1119: Weight/Fitness training (works well in schedule but may conflict with Quidditch)
• (there’s also a morning edition of PHED 1119 this fall but 9:25AM on my long days sounds like no fun at all)

There’s also the issue that I am considering getting my Masters in Kinesiology online (possibly at UT Tyler) which would squeeze the time, but I’m not planning on starting that until Fall 2016 at the earliest so I have the next academic year to try some stuff.

Currently leaning towards the programming class (though that may be in jeopardy depending on how many units/etc we get for free…)

*UPDATE*: It does indeed look like I can take one class (even a lecture/lab combo) for free, but I’m now concerned about time for exercise and for Quidditch.

I still want to run weekly Quidditch in the fall, which means leaving either Monday or Wednesday afternoon open in some way (probably Wednesday?) which makes the afternoon PE workout class a bit risky.  Conversely, if I leave the afternoons open and take the programming class in the evenings of Mon/Wed, it puts any exercise routine at severe risk (and also makes virtually impossible any way to practice martial arts).

I like the system and I feel like it’s working!  I reward myself for doing good stuff and punish myself for not doing good stuff.

I want to expand it to incorporate more exercise-related incentives.  My diet is under control (and the Soylent has made that way easier) but I’m not able to motivate myself to exercise regularly.  So I want to use the system to get exercising done.

Basically the idea is to have things that need to be done on a daily/weekly basis.  Failure to complete a daily or weekly earns some other kind of chip (yellow chip?) and three of them create a red chip.  I also want some ability to buy off yellow chips (maybe bonus exercise?) and possibly some minor reward for completing all the dailies for the week (ANOTHER kind of chip? Or maybe can deduct a yellow chip if there are any, a blue chip just for doing the weeklies might be good but it seems a bit rich)

Need to slightly redo the health tracker also to be friendlier to basic exercises.

Consider a bit more and redo tonight perhaps

This is what happens when you make someone work too hard for ten years, then let the foot off the gas: a proliferation of ambition!

Latest ambition: https://www.uttyler.edu/hkdept/graduate/ms-kinesiology.php

But it’s not free!  Not as bad as I was expecting but not super cheap either.  And there’s the little matter of the debt I’m still paying off.

Here’s the new plan: if my debt payoff is on schedule by next fall, I will start to investigate more seriously, with the intention of saving through the spring to help defray the costs.  Also by then I’ll hopefully have prepped my classes more so I won’t have as much other work to be doing constantly.  If and only if these benchmarks have been met, then I can investigate for maybe starting Fall 2016.

We’ll see!

Apparently somehow, despite literally constructing a way to track how I spend my time.

The thing I am pondering is Online Exalted.  How would it work?

Well I haven’t hashed all that out yet, I’m assuming it would work something like the good ol’ online forum gaming.  But updated, and with WordPress!  Yes.

[Thoughts below on how to make it work.  But first, bed!]

Well as it turns out it wasn’t too hard, I figured it out, largely by (ab)using the Category feature in WordPress.  http://exalted.prionspace.net/online/ is live!  Now to get some people who want to play…

Mostly on track to the to-do list in previous post.

Since it’s raining like crazy today I did not go on the promised run though.  I am instead constructing the Fun Board and I am musing on how to make one part of it work: the tracker

Chip goal: Ability to track effective use of weeks

Chip design: Colors represent quality of use of week (multiple activities) [I really like this because of the appeal of adding different color chips to pools, get some dopamine circuits going, though it’s a little harder to make it work than if the chips represent weeks and are sorted into pools…)

THOUGHT: there should be some recognition that some of the activities are necessarily more challenging and/or energetically expensive than others

Chip mechanics: To best tap into dopamine circuits, there are blue chips which are earned for a well-spent week, and red chips which mark a poorly spent week.  Blue chips are needed to buy off red chips, and an accumulation of red chips results in required punishments.  Blue chips may also be spent on rare luxuries.

Blue chip earnings:

• Activities from at least 4 categories
• At least 10 activities in a week
• At least 15 activities in 2 weeks
• For every 2 high-commitment activities completed in the last week
• For not having any activities in 5+ weeks category

Blue chip spendings:

• 2 chip: Restaurant cheat day (if not, home cookin’!)
• 3 chips: Remove Red Chip
• Need at least one more
• What else even motivates me besides food?….. hmm

The chip exchange rates should be modified as time goes on, especially altered if not teaching summer school

Well I got a new job, quit my previous jobs, moved halfway across the country, and have taught so far one week of biology classes at Victoria College!  Woo!

Tenure track is awesome.  My own office, tons of classes that are less work than what I was doing before, all is great.

And yet it’s already piling up a bit!  I was really sick the week before classes and still a tad sick the first week (still not 100%), so maybe that’s some of it, but I’m also struggling to get organized.  There’s a to-do list on my whiteboard in my office and another on my phone but it’s not coming together.  I was supposed to get a ton of stuff done Monday which was a holiday but I only really got the essentials done and didn’t really get ahead per se.

I’ll try again.  I think I need to just run through the next few days to get things going.

Wednesday:

• Get to campus by 10, warm up etc
• 2404 Lecture (prepped)
• 2401 Lab is OFF due to the holiday, so get these things done in no particular order:
• Eat lunch at Subway because I’m too tired (and also out of ziploc bags) to make lunch right now CHECK
• Create gradebook for lecture (on computer)
• Create gradebook for labs (printed)
• EVC grade printouts CHECK
• Teach evening 2404 lab
• Come home tired, eat tilapia (oops I think I neglected to move them to the fridge), crash

Thursday:

• Morning run if possible
• Eat lunch at home
• Buy ziploc bags and hit post office to mail EVC grades (oops)
• Get to campus by 1
• Teach afternoon 2404 lab
• BJJ (assuming I’m feeling up for it)

Friday:

• Get to campus by 10
• Teach Friday lecture
• Science club meeting (?) and AMS meeting catchup (?)
• Grade and enter lecture quizzes while in office hours
• ADDED: Hit post office, HEB and Petco
• Go home, if everything is caught up play Xbox or something
• Make next week’s lesson plans (at least Mondays)

Saturday:

• BJJ if skipped in the morning, else run
• Make at least one lesson plan
• Once lesson plans are done, make quiz based on lessons
• Head to San Antonio for EXALTED!  Huzzah

Sunday:

• Rest of the lesson plans including labs
• More goofing off after! Hopefully.
• Don’t forget to make BURRITOS!
• BONUS INCENTIVE: If I have finished all my lesson plans BEFORE Sunday I get to play Civilization II and/or ZAngband.  WOO!

Doesn’t look bad at all!  I think the hangup is in my hesitation with regards to how to approach the lecture grading versus attendance.  Perhaps I can enumerate the questions:

• Do I maintain the attendance separate from the grade sheet? The answer is yes, even though it means double-entering everything it reduces confusion
• Do I print out the attendance? Don’t think so but check with Bill
• Do I print out the grades? Uh, no.  Duh
• Do I put the in-lecture quizzes on blackboard? Do I hand back the quizzes? This is tricky because I need to do at least one of these, but I really don’t want to clog up blackboard with lecture quizzes and I don’t want to hand back quizzes in a huge mess. Maybe I can just tell students to pick up their quizzes at my office.  It’s either that or make a grade box which I should probably do anyway to give them back their lecture exams

Well I feel a lot more organized now!  Time for bed!