Vacationing in Winterpeg

Not to be outdone by your father, I need to give a brief account of my time in Winterpeg. Actually the weather was beautiful, only a few days of biting cold stuff. There are some distinct smells that I had forgotten about - the smell of wood smoke, pine trees and cold snow. It was great being back and I have to admit that I really did miss Winnipeg in the winter. The sky on the cold clear days can not be found anywhere - it truely is amazing. The sound of crunching snow on a cold morning is like no other sound. These things made me nastalgic for Canadian Prairies.

I enjoyed my time with Rebekah and her roommates. It was good to spend time with Mom and Dad and hear the stories - I do believe they are the same stories as I heard last time. It was great to be able to do things with Rebekah - MTC, Globe Theater, Church of the Rock, Dessert Sinsations, The Tallest Poppy, Eat Bistro, etc, etc. All very good but not so good for the waistline but a wonderful companion. Sorry I didn't take any pictures but I am certain that you all remember what it looks like.

Anyway since returning to Korea, the weeks have been filled with meetings, planning and more meetings. Classes begin on Tuesday and I am looking forward to getting back into a more regular routine. Unfortunately my classes have been changed two times since getting back. Hopefully this is the final schedule and that my classes will fill up and not get cancelled. Both Dad and I are teaching 5 core classes and then we have the one class that we are team teaching - Dad gets 2 credits and I get one for this course. We are actually quite excited about teaching this class and will be trying something new for the department - team teaching and doing everything online.

Praise Item: We wanted to use online resources for a couple of our classes, including the course we are team teaching. The department has a computer lab which hasn't been used for a number of years - the room was a shambles. We asked about using the room but did not receive much support from the department admin staff. Then word came that the University Admin wanted to use the room for Freshman registration so the department admin got the word that all the computers had to be made ready. They hired a guy to take the systems all apart and put them into service. Dad and I helped out by cleaning and organizing what we could. So as of today, there are 25 systems up and running. We need to have 24 to 26 systems ready for next week when we begin classes. Praise God for working this out. Interestingly, the Univ. Admin decided that they didn't need the room afterall but that was after David, the computer guru had spent all his time reconfiguring the computers. So next week we will have the computers ready and will be able to access the programs that we had been planning to use.

The vacation is soon ending, classes begin on Tuesday - Monday is a national holiday here. I'm a little nervous about what this semester will bring as we are piloting some new ideas and also I'm not certain about my classes. As of this moment, one of my classes has no students. If it gets cancelled then I will be short 3 hours which could really screw up next semester.