Update is overdue!
I hardly update anymore because really I don’t think many people read this still. I have people approach me and ask if I have put up anything new lately because they haven’t checked it in awhile, which of course means they haven’t read anything since about a year ago when I was finishing up treatments etc.
I guess I will start with this past summer: The classes were a struggle this year since they required so much study time. The Educational Research was rough and even now I am still not done with it. I have to do some research and then type of results etc and submit it by December 7th. If I pass that class I will have only 6 credits remaining out of 34 required for my Masters. I could have crammed in a frew more credits this summer but I was amazed out how quickly I got burned out of studying. Even now I have difficulty concentrating on a serious topic for more then 30 minutes.
After 6 weeks of summer school I took a few days for myself to get rested up and then ventured up to VA to do some work with my older brother Tommy. Did some odd jobs here and there like some demo work for SVA in their lobby, some refacing work for a family that Tommy did a tile job for, and making a nice little desk for my mother from a piece of SVAs old receptionists counter. Overall it was a nice week up in VA seeing the family and just taking it easy.
I had another few days to myself once I returned back to Knoxville and then hit the “get-ready-for-school” phase. I actually found it difficult getting into the classroom to prepare lesson plans because of the intensity of summer school. I was not able to concentrate on anything that required academics. So I played handy-man and janitor or whatever else needed done.
A big project that I worked on a lot was getting the 85 gallon reef tank ready. I made lots of contacts with companies for donations of salt, chemicals, test kits, Reverse Osmosis units, and a slew of other things. We also had a chruch member come in and make a custom hood to cover the lights and top of the tank that is lockable to keep the fish and lights safe from greedy hands. He also refinished the cabinet base so that it matches the hood and is also lockable.
So far the tank has salt water running, sand in the bottom, and a nice ball of chaeto (benificial algae) rolling around in the refugium. The principle is super excited to have the tank in her classroom since the Firemarshall will not allow us to keep the tank on display in the hallway due to it being a possible firehazard. Sunday I will pick up a load of Live Rock (porous rock that has benificial bacteria in it to break down ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates) so that we can get the tank stabalized for livestock.
As you notice I am writing this about 2am on a Saturday morning and you are probably wondering what I am doing up. I grabbed a bit of a nap after dinner this afternoon and it has thrown off my sleep so I have spent the last 2 hours reading the final chapters of book 5 of Harry Potter. I’ve been reading the Potter books gaining some understanding of what some of my students are blabbering about in class and using it as a learning experience of how dangerous fantasy can be if you are not grounded in reality. Even reading C.S. Lewis can be dangerous if children are missing the proper Spiritual concepts that are meant by the author. Anyway enough of that…
Monday I saw my oncologist and he said that my latest CT scan was good. He doesn’t forsee a need for me to have another PET or CT scan for awhile and just asked me to get a chest X-ray in January sometime and some blood work done. God is good, not in the fact that I am cancer free but in the fact that He is looking out for each one of us. Remember that as you go through this weekend and next week that if God is our top priority, nothing can stop us from being happy even when we’re persecuted.