Weekend Update - December 14th

Weekend Update
I haven’t been posting much this week. I have been busy with school and other things in my life.

I have a new department chair at school this term. Since this is the beginning of my third year at school, I am fairly self-sufficient and know where everything is and how the school works. The new chair gave me my quarterly evaluation. I am doing well and had a much better evaluation than I did in the prior quarter.

The only complaints were some of the classrooms were cold and the computers in the labs were slow. Neither one of those complaints was an instructor related variable.

Wednesday was a busy day for me. I had my morning class which went well. Then, I was off to the clinic visit, more of that later. After the clinic visit, I was back to school to help another instructor launch a new student club. He asked me to help out because there are some areas where he is weak.

I was tired when I stopped at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf after the school club meeting. I needed a large ice blended. It was well made but Tihana wasn’t there.

I finished up my Christmas cards on Saturday except for three or four where I am uncertain if I have correct addresses. I should get those cleared up in a day or so; it is not too significant since they are all Southern California addresses.

We are supposed to have a Winter storm or what passes for one in Southern California could into town tonight. We will get a little rain and some snow in the mountains and mostly be cold for several days. The weather news readers were all in a tizzy about the storm; you would think that they never saw a rainstorm before. One of the weather news readers was apparently so excited that she broke out her mini-skirt for the 6:00 news report. I guess she didn’t want her skirt to get too wet.

My friend Sunny, from China, asked me to help her with her essay for her application to a doctoral program in the United States. She wants to get her PhD here and then either return to China or stay here and work. Sunny has developed a taste for American food.

Sunny’s topic is online dating attitudes. I thought her research and analysis was fascinating and, in some parts, reflected how we have carried on our IM conversations over the last three years. I should state, for the record, we have never met in person. Maybe we will meet some day

It took me about three and half or maybe four hours to go over her paper and make my corrections and suggestions. That may seem like a long time for a 25 page long paper but it isn’t. The first paper I reviewed for Sunny was for her application to a Master’s program in the United States took two days to complete.

I think she did a great job on her paper.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitors; 835 of you stopped by in the last week. Visitor traffic is still favoring foreign visitors. There is no specific country that is dominating visitor traffic this month unlike November when the Germans stormed into the blog.

I do appreciate all of you who visit the blog as you take time out of your busy lives.

The Clinic Visit
I had a scheduled visit with the colorectal surgeons on Wednesday. They are the ones who are supposed to stitch me back together this coming Fall.

It was a wash-out.

The doctor I was supposed to see could not find a key report that had been issued back in June. The report was about my planned treatment for the cancer and she wanted to discuss it with me. The party or Tumor Board line was that I would wait until next year and have a triple play surgery; reconnection of my colon, removal of the colostomy bag, and a liver resection to remove the lesions.

This procedure made sense to me and to Doug.

Now, the last oncologist and the new colorectal surgeon want to move part of the surgery, liver resection, up by several months.


I am unaware of any reason or tests that would change the original plans. This was all sort of a shock to me. I haven’t been this anxious since I was on the good ship Leonard F. Mason during the Vietnam War when the bad guys were shooting at us. The photo is probably from late 1968 or early 1969. The anxiety or tension comes close to when I have my periodic flashbacks from the service.

Yes, I have flashbacks; but, then most of us who served in Vietnam do. Mine are fairly mild; at least, I think that they are.

Hopefully, I will get to see Dr. Karen on December 26th and I will ask her what she might prescribe for me if my anxiety gets any worse.

Friday was a Tihana Day for me
After I finished my shopping on Friday, I went to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for a large ice blended. I needed something nice to happen to me.

Something nice happened to me.

Tihana was at the Bean; she made me a perfect ice blended drink. Tihana told me that she finally gotten around to reading what I had written about her in the blog. She thought I was being very nice and sweet.

I asked Tihana if she was working next Wednesday. She will be. Then, I asked her to wear her red tee shirt because I think she looks so much better in red and because I want to have a new or second photo of her for the blog.

Tihana blushed, giggled, smiled, and said sure.

Next Wednesday will be a good day for me.


That was my weekend. I hope you all had great weekends.


Be well and stay happy.