Busy Days

I decided to write a few lines to give an update on our lives before things get crazy with the new school year. I have been constantly busy since I stopped teaching for the Upward Bound Program at the beginning of August. I have been writing all sorts of proposals for my research, and trying to finish up some papers I needed to revise. I've been trying to set up my lab, organize my class for this next semester, and organize my students. It's been non-stop, with some late nights and some days that I thought would never end!

The semester starts next week on September 5th, but I won't be teaching until Wednesday. I am teaching a course called Diversity and Health on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. there are 60 students registered for the course, and a number of students have emailed me to ask if they can be forced in because registration is closed. I'm looking forward to this school year; I don't have to prepare for my classes from scratch because I taught them before. I realized that I took my teaching WAY too personal last year, which I hear is a common problem with new faculty members. I felt like a failure at times, and began to feel emotionally spent whenever I even thought about my class. Teaching is not one of the major skills that the university judges my performance on, but it's hard to know that your students think your teaching stinks! This semester should be good though...this is the class I really enjoy teaching, and the students enjoy it as well.

Anthony and I have stayed busy...Anthony is busy practicing with his band for a show on Labor Day weekend, and he is busy with other music projects and other software and web design projects. He's been writing some awesome new songs, and his creativity seems to overflow at times. Work is going well, and he really enjoys his job now that he is doing exactly what he wants to do. Talk about God's favor...Anthony had a meeting with his bosses one day to let them know he didn't like what he was doing at work. In response, they changed his responsibilities to allow him to do more design work, which is exactly what he loves to do. Most bosses would have probably told him to suck it up or find another job. He is an amazing web designer..check out the webpage he made for my lab in the span of just a couple of days. http://bbh.hhdev.psu.edu/labs/fchl/

We've had some down time to just hang out around the house and with family and friends. We have been reading a book together, called "The Search for Significance," which has been difficult for both of us to read. We both realized that we have a slight, well, huge approval addiction, which manifests itself in a number of different ways in our lives. It is an excellent book, and I believe the Lord is working something out in us. The book is difficult to read only because it brings up some issues that you don't want to admit are issues for you, like how you determine your self-worth. Is it based on man's approval or the Lord's approval? As I evaluate my own self-worth, I realize that we are designed to base our self-worth on man's approval...how well we raise our kids, how well we do with our finances, how well we've done in school and at work, etc. We all know who we are in God's eyes, but when we don't see ourselves the way we think God sees us, the book says that we are essentially calling God a liar. He's either right about who we are, or He's wrong. Whoa. It's hard to stomach. Now I am trying my best to avoid situations where I am actively seeking out evaluations of my performance, like with teaching. This past year I worried so much about my evaluations from my students, and how that defined me as a teacher. Now, it's not that I don't care, but I'm not going to obsess over finding out "how I'm doing." I'm going to do the best I can, be a good steward, and know that everything I do glorifies God. Don't mean to get so spiritual tonight, but this has been an amazing ride, and it's only been about a week since we started reading together!

Well, enough about that. I'll end with a few pictures below from a baby-birthday party we went to last weekend. Enjoy!