Last night I had ten people over for a Passover Seder. No, I’m not Jewish, but I’ve taken the Jewish kids under my (not very protective) wing over the last several years, and been responsible for shuttling them to temple on Friday nights, and so forth. Plus, I have a boatload of dishes and flatware to serve a large meal to a large group of people. So whenthe mother of a student needed a place to set up a seder, I was the natural choice.

We invited twelve, nine showed up, and everyone vanished almost the moment that the food was done, so we didn’t do the second part of storytelling and discussion, or Elijah’s cup, or those bits. But we still had a good time. wormtown_mensch and vakira were supposed to come, but car issues prevented it. Alas.

Using my new to do system based on Bill Westermann’s sytem, GSD, I’ve filled thirty-two pages of To-Do items in the last two weeks, and all but seven individual items are done. So, it’s working for me. Your milage may vary. I find the biggest challenge is to use the dot-in-box priority marker as a priority — the things that are priorities for me often involve equipment or materiel or personnel that are not immediately available, identifiable, or useful. So that part is taking a while to unravel.

I have no spring sport assignment, and today was my first real afternoon off in weeks, if not months, while school was in session. Normally I have Mondays off duty, but I’m often so busy the rest of the week that the time off gets consumed in errands and other duties. Today I was able to grade papers, set up my grade-book for spring, and send off e-mails to colleagues, without feeling rushed or frantic. I was even able to write a few poems, although the writing quality leaves much to be desired.

I have three back-burner writing plans for spring, and at the moment it’s looking like I can get all three accomplished. First, I want to write an Architectural Pattern Guide to my school, which will be a collection of photos to bits of campus architecture and design. The idea behind an APG is that those elements become the basis for future construction on campus, even if it’s only a jumping-off spot.

The second thing is a Technology Education Plan. As a faculty, we don’t know as much as we should about technology, particularly computer technology. There are a lot of useful tools out there for teachers, but for the most part we don’t use them. So, I want to design and propose a basic 11-week self-guided program, with three levels of incentive — complete all thirty-three technology-oriented education goals on the list, and you get a laptop from the school. Complete twenty-two goals, and you get some nifty piece of tech, less than a laptop. Complete eleven of the goals, and you get one of those$79 mini iPods. Whether or not the school funds this, I don’t know, but most of the teachers under a certain age will be interested, I suspect.

The third thing is that I’m angling for a freelance writing gig for this summer, and there may be one available for this spring which would be fun. It would be a tight writing schedule, but I’m increasingly interested in doing those. So this may be the spring to do it.

My one big front-burner issue is that I want to go back on some sort of particular and picky meal plan. What I’ve been eating the last few months has not worked for me. I not only need daily exercise, I need daily food that’s appropriate, good and useful for my body and its type. So this is what I shall be working on. Your encouragement, suggestions and guidance in these activities (front or back burner) is always welcome.

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