It's been awhile....

So, it's been awhile since I've posted anything and it's been an eventful few weeks....in some good ways and some bad. I guess I'll hit the highlights and we'll go from there.

I spent a few days in Dallas, Texas for a conference on the first-year experience. I went with a student and a staff member from academic affairs. And, fortunately, I had time to see a friend while I was there...which was great. I really enjoy when I travel somewhere for work and can see others for fun, too. The conference was great...gave us lots of ideas, and I enjoyed spending time with the others from work. But, I just have to say that the older I get, the more I enjoy being able to go to my hotel room and have a little alone time at the end of the day. Plus, I need my sleep. We left 10 degree weather for daytime temps in the 70s. It was wonderful to have a few days of spring. But, on the day we left it hit 80 and it was a little hot for schlepping luggage around town. Oh yeah....we were a few miles from Nordstrom's, so you know I had to go there. I managed to get a little shopping done...duh.

I managed to catch a cold during the trip and felt like CRAP at the end of last week. I actually ended up taking a sick day last Thursday and had to cancel my class for that day. You know I had to feel bad to do that. And, I spent Saturday laying around the house and moaning. :) I'm starting to feel a bit more like myself, but I'm still pretty stuffed up.

Then, the horrible thing...a student was found in his room - dead. Apparently, he hung himself after Ash Wednesday services and he wasn't found until the following night. He was an RA and had a single room, so it took a day for people to wonder where he was. The whole situation is a little surreal for me. I didn't know the student, but know a few students who did know him. But, since I haven't been here that long, I don't have the same connection with students that I had before. It takes awhile to build those kinds of relationships, or at least for me it does. So, I'm feeling a little detached and watching the whole Catholic process of grieving kick into gear has been fascinating. We've had two on-campus prayer services and a memorial service scheduled for Friday. And, of course, we've got a bus taking students to his funeral that's a few hours south of here. Our campus ministry staff and counseling center have kicked into high gear, but I've never witnessed this much religious response to such a tragedy before. Like I said....fascinating.

So, I've been feeling reflective ( yes, I know that's unusual...that's why I point it out). Being a person who always likes to know why people do things, this is one of those situations where we'll probably never know why he did this. And, as I hear our staff begin the process of debriefing their crisis response as well as, look at how to try to prevent such things from happening again, people really want to know why. How can you truly be preventive of such a situation? I'm not sure you can. If someone is really that convinced that this is the answer, I don't know that I've got an argument that will convince them otherwise. (This is why I'm not a counselor.) Anyway, I'm hoping everyone that I know and love is doing well and feeling good about themselves. Although, I'm not nearby many of you, you are all in my thoughts daily because you've all influenced me in some way and I am the better person for it.

It's a heat wave!

It got up to 13 degrees today. Woo hoo! It still dips below zero overnight. On the news tonight they said that we've had 7 straight days with sub-zero temps, which is a record for any February in this area. The scary part about that is that it isn't a record for all time, otherwise they wouldn't have specified just February.

In fact, all the schools (not colleges) in the area were closed on Monday because it was so cold that it was too dangerous to let kids walk to school or wait for the bus. And, on Tuesday most school districts were delayed for 2 hours for the same reason. Of course, I still had work. But, it was quiet cuz nobody wanted to leave their rooms or offices because it was so freakin' cold.

So, it's been a couple of weeks since I've thought about writing any updates. Not much has been going on that I think would seem exciting to others. :) Mark's working full-time....finally. He's working contract security for a shipyard up in Sturgeon Bay. It's about an hour commute each way, but they'll start having openings at different sites soon. Although, he likes what he's doing up there. It's considered a Homeland Security post, so they've gotta train him to do special stuff (I don't know what) and get some sort of response from Homeland Security about him working there. I guess that puts him on some sort of list they keep there. I would bet that I'm on the opposite kind of list somewhere in DC. :) W probably sees the emails I forward to others and knows that I was on John Kerry's email list and now on Barack Obama's email list. Plus, I get updates from the Human Rights Campaign and moveon.org. Clearly, I'm a communist.

Well, I wanted people to know that I'm not permanently embedded in a block of ice. I've gotta get to bed and remember to put a dollar under Maranda's pillow for her tooth tonight. Hope for warmer weather for us (I mean like 25 degrees....I don't want all the snow to go away). :)