Wednesday Afternoon

I was just looking at our past posts here and realized that the last couple weeks of February had very few posts compared to the final weeks of months in the past. This speaks to how busy we've been around here lately. It's one of the busier times of the year for me. I have a part to play in the recruitment and selection of both RAs and new Hall Directors within our department for next year, and both of these processes are currently running as we speak. I've been spending a lot of time teaching and evaluating RA candidates for the past three weeks. I spent four days at the end of February in OshKosh, Wisconsin interviewing Hall Director candidates. As much as I love the recruiting and hiring process in Res Life, I'll be happy to be done in the next couple of weeks.

We've been going to a Prepared Childbirth class on Tuesday nights since the middle of February. While we were thoroughly impressed with and enjoyed the Hypnobirthing class we took in January, we've found this latest class to be rather redundant and depressing. Redundant in the sense that we already know a lot of the material being presented by the "teacher," but also depressing for that same reason. And don't even get us started on the other people in the class. It's a depressing thing to think that some of these people are going to have the same amount of responsibilty as we will in the near future. I guess I'm assuming that I'm not going to mess up my kid when I say that about the other people in our class, but I could be wrong. Maybe we're all going to be equally terrible or awesome.

Only eight weeks until we find out which it's going to be.

I'm trying to think of parenting in the same capacity I considered marriage before our wedding. It's something I am terribly excited for, but for which I'll also never be fully prepared. It's also not something to be too predetermined, but which I think is most meaningful and beneficial when it is flexible and adaptable. That's not to say that we won't parent according to certain key principles or values, but rather that we won't approach parenting with the idea that we're going to shape our kid into one certain thing or another. I think it's best to raise a kid with some unbending values, but to also allow for the kid to be self-determined.

Of course, I could read these words again twenty years from now and laugh my ass off at the idealism of pre-parenthood. We'll see, I guess.

Sarah and I are going to put most of our federal tax refund towards paying off our car loan. I can't wait until we're out from under that debt. It might take us another year yet, but we're pretty set on paying it off as quickly as is possible and responsible.

Speaking of financial responsibility, Sarah said that I could put the money I make while working over Spring Break towards my next tattoo. I can't wait.

That's it for today. I should probably get back to work. There are students to develop and papers to be filed. It never ends.

Stay Gold. Maybe I'll be better about writing this month.

MMK