Wait, it's what? What do you mean it's practically Thanksgiving break already!?

I figure a blog entry's title might as well sum up the post in one thought... :-P

Yes, yes. It's been quite a while, yet again. Ideally, I had wanted to use the month of November to turn things around and post more often (basically doing NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month - and writing blog entries instead of one storyline), but unfortunately that did not happen. Now I get to think back on all the things that happened in October and November...

-My classes have continued to go pretty well. Part of my conversations with the students include mentioning that there are really only three weeks left in the semester, so it's weird to think that that also applies to me. There are some individual projects that I need to work on, but nothing too concerning. Oh, and with classes, I've been observing math classes at the local high school. I'm not sure how detailed I can get (obviously nothing with names or identifying information) and I might make a post about my experiences, but it's definitely different seeing a moreso normal group of high school students in the classroom setting compared to academically advanced students in a residential environment.

-The guys on the wing are doing alright although some are having to tie up loose ends before winter break. I do wish all of my guys the best of luck and we'll have to see how the last round of tests goes. My second-year leaders did have a week-long program series about good hygiene and I thought it went well overall. Definitely some good information the guys can benefit from, and I liked the program format.

-The Math Team competed again on Saturday in Kansas City and we got second again. We also had our second MOML (Missouri Math League) test on Tuesday and I think we had a couple of students who got perfects. I've been compiling results from different math 'things' and I'm really impressed by the turnout I've been getting with the first-year students. I mean, I was definitely not expecting 15 people to show up on Tuesday to take a test that's during study hours AND an orchestra concert that some students were using for extra credit.

-Robotics continues to chug along and it's kind of scary (on my end at least) to think that our competition is the weekend after we get back from Thanksgiving. Fortunately, the team has been doing well and I'm seeing good progress on the robot. We've hit some snags with not having enough material or the right parts, but the crew isn't letting that completely stop their progress. Also, we got funding secured with JCPenney and things are looking good with our contacts with IBM. Yay!

-The Envirothon team rocked it up again at regionals this year and took first again! It was a completely different team from last year, so I was wondering how they did, and I was quite impressed. The scores for each category are out of 100 points and we got a 91 in one of the categories (whereas 2nd place in that category was somewhere in the 60's).

-We also had another round of Acadacathalonomania.. specifically, "1.21 Jiggawatts? Great Scott!" which definitely had a number of Back to the Future references. We ended up having 5 teams compete for at least part of the competition and there were definitely some awesome videos. A lot of the teams also seemed up for doing it again in the spring, so it's good to see the interest continue.

-Hmm... Oh, I went and visited my best college friend out in Indiana for a couple of days! I just put a couple of days off today and flew out there and it was really fun! My friend had to work, but we were able to spend time together in the evenings and then I explored the town during the day. I also got to meet my friend's girlfriend as well as a friend of a friend... this is kind of confusing. You can trust me though -- it was all quite fun.

-This past weekend, my mom was also able to visit! Once again, I threw some off days together and we ended up going to St Joe, seeing "In Time", eating good food, and catching up on things. Just like my college friend, it was a short visit but one that I really appreciated. If anything, it was a shame that my co-workers were busy with other things this weekend because my mom visited me last Memorial Day and it was a blast spending time with my mom and co-workers.

-This is the point where I can't think of any recent big things. It's crazy to think that Thanksgiving break is mere days away. I had a couple of families invite me to their place for the holiday and I'll probably take one up on the offer. Okay, shouldn't sound like I'm boasting - by "a couple of families", I do literally mean two families, and I appreciate both offers.

-Hmm... I can't think of anything else really. We've had alumni coming and visiting on various weekends. This year feels more significant on that front because the alumni are a lot of the students that just graduated, aka the students who were first-years my first year here at the Academy. So, I really look forward to all the visits. I do need to get to bed now though because I want to do observation hours at the high school tomorrow, and if I go all day tomorrow, I'll be done! Wish me luck!

~Matt