Greetings, 2018

A non-mathy post for this morning. I feel like I need to clear my head out a bit here.

• Thanks to Meg Craig and the #Fitbos gang for helping to keep me motivated this past year. I set two goals for myself with my trusty fitbit flex. I wanted to accumulate an average of 30 minutes per day at an ‘active’ level. I compiled a total of 207.45 active hours. Last time I checked my multiplication, this exceeds my goal! I also set a goal of walking 2017 miles in 2017. I ended up at 2050.16. I am pretty pleased, but time is still working against me, despite this level of activity I am more achy and a bit paunchier than I was this time last year. Have to ramp it up to fight against Father Time.
• Thanks to connections that my wife has at her college I was able to score a gig as a DJ at the local college radio station. Almost every Thursday since June, I have had the great pleasure of spending two hours (from 4 – 6 PM ET on wrkc.kings.edu) playing pretty much whatever music amuses me on terrestrial radio. I have been compiling playlists over at Spotify where you can search me up as mrdardy. It has been one of the real joys of my life this past year.
• Mostly a consequence of my DJ gig, I have listened to more new music released in 2017 than any year since the birth of my son in 2003. It feels great to be reminded of the pleasure of discovering new music again. I still feel a bit overwhelmed when I read Best of lists at the end of the year, but there is a better chance of me knowing a number of items on these lists than I have had in years.
• At work we have had a couple of important changes. We moved to a new, rotating schedule. We have 7 periods, 5 of which meet each day. In a seven day cycle each class meets five times. Four of the meetings are 50 minute classes (every once in a while an assembly moves that back to 45 minutes) and meets once for a 90 minute block. This has been a great change in our daily lives.
• In our department we adopted a test correction policy where all students are allowed to earn back points by reflecting on their work. We ask them to submit corrections in the form of pointing out where/what went wrong in the problem’s work and then correcting said problem. I am super excited about this project and I see students being really thoughtful and attentive in submitting these corrections.
• My life at school has been a bit more hectic than I’d like, despite the change in schedule. I have five classes this year (more often than not, this has been my standard work load here) which is especially manageable in this new rotation. What has been tiring is that I have four different class preps. Keeping all these trains running in my mind, especially since my two Geometry classes are rarely ever aligned anymore, has been a tiring challenge. I think being 53 and having a 14 year old boy and an 8 year old girl in the house has an impact as well!
• I was able to attend TwitterMathCamp for the fourth summer in a row. As an added bonus, this past year did not conflict with my daughter’s birthday. Another bonus was that Atlanta is the home of an old high school buddy who was also my first college roommate. I had not seen him in years and had a lovely night with him and his family on a warm southern night, hours spent on his porch catching up was a delight.
• My time at TMC was followed by a trip to FLA that included a couple of nights catching up with friends in my old hometown of Gainesville. Had not been there in a few years.
• My school is a PK – PG school on two campuses. We live on the upper school campus, the lower school is about three miles away. My son is in 8th grade and he and his pals will be in my hallways in 8 months. Exciting and scary at the same time!
• My wife is nearing the end of her Master’s Degree program. It’s been fun listening to her talk about her school experiences. It has been ten years now since my course work last ended. I’m a bit jealous, I think.
• Off to face the new day, the new year, I guess, now…