Off to a good start

I took the holiday break completely off! I haven't taken two whole weeks off in memory. It was GREAT. I feel like a new person. (Of course, I got bronchitis the first week and spent almost the entire second week in bed, so it's hard to say if I'd have been so relaxed if I'd been totally well. It was nice to have that situation where I was sick enough to stay in bed but well enough to enjoy it.)

Now grades are due in a couple of weeks, so the pressure is back on. I've worked with a couple of students to, shall we say, reduce their workload in the face of not having done quite a number of the assignments this semester. (sigh) That said, I'm managing to balance the workload so that I've kept mostly taking evenings off. 

Starting with the new semester, I'll be starting python. I did decide to start with the same approach I took last year. I just think it makes the most sense for my students, though I have visions of splitting them and teaching some with one approach and the others with the other approach (functional vs. OOP) and seeing who does better...

This week I'm going to Rebooting Computing, so hopefully there'll be posts from the field.