Summer in Houston

It is officially summer now, although we have been feeling summer here for at least a month. But unlike our usual summers, it has decided to hardly rain. So our lawn is dying because both Justin and I hate having to mess with watering the lawn. Not to mention that signs have been posted in our neighborhood for voluntary water restriction - which basically means it isn't raining so we are asking you not to water your lawns - if it keeps not raining we will be told that we aren't allowed to water our lawns. I guess we have been helping out over the past month by not watering (even before we were asked not to).

Justin has been busy with work and we are both happy that he has been busy working in the area and not out of town. We really have set a record this year for time spent under the same roof. We are very grateful and are not looking forward to when he will have to head out to his clients in Louisiana again which will most likely be in August.

I am halfway through my first summer term and I am so grateful that in just over 2 weeks it will be drawing to a close. I am currently teaching Calculus II and the second summer term I will be teaching Calculus I. I thought this would be a lot easier than last year when I taught 2 classes at the same time during the first summer term, but now I'm not so sure. At least last year I was teaching classes I was good at - I am terrible at Calc 2!!! I am remembering all to well how much I hated it when I took it about 12 years ago and how hard it was for me. At least being an actuary taught me how to teach myself so I do understand the concepts better (hopefully I am understanding them well enough to teach them), but I really don't know when this stuff is ever used. Everyday I have to teach myself the sections, then do the homework problems I assigned and then figure out exactly how I want to go over it in class. And since class is 3.5 hours a day, I am in class almost as long as I was last summer teaching 2 classes.

Calc 1 will be much easier (when it starts up July 10) - I already know it and won't have to spend a couple hours a day teaching it to myself. But in the next 2 weeks I need to find a better way to handle homework. Homework in these higher level classes is really the bane of my existence. They need to do it to practice and be able to do the problems on an exam - so I have to assign it and have some way of giving them credit for it - however I really, really hate grading it. Grading homework takes hours upon hours. All the classes I am teaching in the fall will have online homework which is fabulous!