I really am alive! (But I feel half dead...)

I know I'm not doing so well at updating lately - when I have time it's because nothing is happening except working on my dissertation, and how excited could any of you possibly even pretend to be to read about the section I just finished on the separation of church and state, or how I found a great new data set from a survey in the 1960s? And then when there is something remotely interesting to write about, I don't have time. And by the time I have time again, whatever was exciting is so far in the past it doesn't seem too exciting anymore.

Anyway, we've just finished up the really busy two weeks of summer for Young Women stuff. First up was Girls Camp from the 9th to 12th. After finally getting co-camp directors called in May I was hoping I could hand off pretty much everything to them. They did great, but it's amazing how much work there still is to be done. We had four young women that people wanted to get signed up in the week before camp, long after the deadline to turn everything in - 3 investigators and one granddaughter of a less active member who has been coming back to church - and then none of them ended up going anyway. Mind you, this was all during the last week of my 3-week stats class, so I was feeling a little stressed about that and not at all in the mood to be calling all over the place trying to get this set up, then having to call around again to undo the last minute additions! But the girls who went had a lot of fun, and their skit and Bishop's gift were a big hit. I went up Thursday for ward activity afternoon and was suppose to spend the night, but one of our girls got sick so instead I ended up driving her home. The camp director said they had enough people if I wanted to sleep at home and just drive back the next morning to pick girls up, so I gladly skipped a night on a wood platform in favor of my mattress. Unfortunately, there was a massive storm on the way up to camp the next morning - at one point it was black as night with torrential rain and winds snapping small limbs off trees, and I had to pull over because there was no way to drive safely. Then an intersection was flooded, and then there was a wreck a little further down the road that I had to wait a while to get around. So my poor girls ended up being the next to last to leave. Relatively speaking, though, it was much less stressful than other years - and I only had to make 2 trips, instead of the 3 I made last year!

Then this past weekend was Youth Conference - we had 8 signed up, and it's suppose to be one adult for each 5 YW, so I ended up having to ask my poor 2nd counselor to help chaperon. She had also made two trips to Girls Camp the previous week, and has 4 younger children at home, and happens to be just shy of 4 months pregnant - she quite willingly said yes, but I felt horrible about asking. Who could be honestly excited to shepherd a bunch of teenagers around and sleep on the floor while pregnant, while hoping their husband was coping with the other children and the house wasn't turning in to a total disaster? It was a great weekend, but I'm feeling like a total limp noodle now. It doesn't seem like it should be so tiring - but we were outside most of Friday and the temp was just shy of 100 with a ton of humidity. They had inflatable toys (obstacle course, boxing ring, and slide) and a rock climbing wall for Friday evening, and it was funny to watch the youth who had just been complaining about how hot it was suddenly feel great when it was their tribe's turn to compete on one of the events. (Our theme was believers, based on the TV show survivors.) It really probably was too hot to be outside, but it made cleanup from dinner (the absolute best barbecue brisket I've ever had!) a lot easier, and they'd already arranged for the rental stuff so we were kind of stuck with that plan.

The members' home we stayed in was absolutely gorgeous, and I do mean showroom gorgeous, so I stressed the whole time we were there about what my girls were breaking/staining/ruining. They're really good kids, just teenagers with not a lot of concept of how much damage they can do. We had an hour break in the afternoon to get cleaned up at our host homes, and we took the girls to Sonic for happy hour drinks on our way there. At one point I looked up and saw one of the girls leaning over the railing of an open loft area with her drink in hand - a large cherry Dr. Pepper - with a 14 foot drop to pristine off-white carpet and leather furniture below. She of course thought I was making a huge deal over nothing, and I had no problem imagining that drink slipping out of her hand or another YW bumping into her. And then I saw two other Sonic cups sitting directly on this gorgeous wood nightstand and just about had a hear attack! Fortunately they hadn't been there but a minute and there was no water damage to the wood. I just knew we were going to damage something before we got out of there, but I didn't see anything so hopefully we left our host home as good as we found it.

Saturday should have been an easy day, just talks and workshops - except we had a young man from our ward vanish for nearly an hour. It turned out he was hiding in the bathroom (alone) to get out the YM's workshop. I really don't get it - how is it more enjoyable to sit in a bathroom by yourself than just go to the class? They had great speakers! With the young women, we had one wanderer we had to keep reminding to go where she was suppose to - she wasn't trying to skip stuff, just started talking to friends at every break and was late to every class as a result. It was mostly just tiring to be encouraging all the time, because our 14 year olds were too nervous to jump into anything without a ton of encouraging, even though they had fun every time they did participate. So anyway, the conference was really well done this year, and I did enjoy it greatly, and all of my young women enjoyed it greatly and can't wait for next year, so it was well worth the minor aggravations here and there. I still just can't figure out why I'm this exhausted from it!

So now the "fun" is over - at least Stake fun. We still have our annual ward boating activity in a couple of weeks, but that's just one evening and not much more work than planning a regular Wednesday night. I need to get back into my dissertation full-time now, with no more excuses to avoid it, and also have a couple of publications I'm working on with different professors, and one article that has been accepted for publication with just a few more minor changes to do. And July is my month to TA, so I'll have some grading and classroom stuff to add in some variety. Plus, I'm trying to get ready for next semester so it won't be overwhelming once school starts. I'd forgotten how challenging it is to put a course together for the first time, since I have no idea how long things will take to cover. I can update the Intro Soc stuff in no time, but this Law and Legal Institutions class is going to be time consuming to prep. I'm having a blast, though. I've already picked out several books for group book reports, and I think they're all easy reads but also really interesting. And I've been digging up "fun" stuff from law school for them to try, like some practice ethics exam questions. Lately I've been trying to find some fun and easy to follow cases on the subject we'll be discussing to get them some experience with actual case law. (I have a great one about how a cow is not a car, and therefore a collision with a cow is not covered by uninsured motorist insurance - you never know what crazy arguments a lawyer will come up with!) My hardest thing right now is limiting how much time I spend on working on classes for next fall - it's far too easy to avoid my dissertation by rationalizing that I'm working on course prep so it's still productive.

And that's a very long description of how I've been filling my time lately.