Wow....it's almost March!
So it’s been an incredibly long time since I’ve actually committed to writing a blog entry….basically since Business Ethics took over my life at the start of the new year.
Work: I’ve been adding about five hours a week for the yoga studio from the comfort of my own home. We are preparing for a big transition at the yoga studio coming in July. At that time we are moving from two studios down to one studio. Along with that we are completely revamping the set up of our classes. Currently we have many drop-in classes available for our students because we have adequate space to accommodate varying numbers of students. However, in July we will be moving to pre-registered sessions only. This requires a discontinuation of selling class packages and establishing a lot of new policies to govern the new pre-registered sessions, which has required a lot of research to see what other studios, YMCAs, etc. have in place. In transitioning to one studio it also has required some massive cleaning out of supplies, files, equipment, etc.. Tentatively they are planning to shut down for a week or so at the end of June to rearrange the studio, do some painting, etc..
This move will be very beneficial to the studio. Pre-registration for all of the classes will really cut down on the administrative overhead….in fact my job as it currently stands would be nearly eliminated! The last week or so I’ve found myself extremely bored with my work at the studio. It has been a bit quite there lately and all of my tasks are pretty routine. The bulk of my time is spent entering class sign-in sheets, (one of the things that will not need to be done when we go to strict pre-registration), confirming workshop participants, (also will be eliminated), and responding to e-mail or phone messages from instructors and students. The other parts of my job include setting the class schedules, updating the website, creating flyers and promotional materials. Unfortunately this represents only a very small fraction of my time. Oh well…it’s just a part-time gig.
St. James Foundation: This has finally gotten going. I put together a proposal for the Foundation in terms of the scope of work and compensation and they agreed to it. My main task to focus on between now and June is planning the golf outing. I figure that will take about 80-100 hours, so I should make about $1200 on that project. I am really excited about the golf outing. It should be a lot of fun and quite the expansive project to plan and execute! My big goal is to increase the number of participants from the mid-forties to sixty golfers….hopefully I’ll pull it off! I am also going to work on setting up a web presence for the Foundation, which will also help promote the golf outing. Earlier this month the Foundation supported me in taking a class in grant-writing. It was phenomenal! However, it was very much an eye-opener into how much time will be involved in writing a grant and I am not sure that the Foundation is ready to make that kind of commitment, (financially). I was told that I should plan to spend at least three hours per page of a grant. Most grants run at least twenty pages. That’s a whole lot of time, (and therefore money), to invest in something that is not likely to have any return! It is highly unlikely that any of your first half dozen grants will even be accepted! Ouch!
School: So I’ve started my graduate work now as of January 1. I’m currently taking Business Ethics. For once I have video lectures available to me on the Internet. The professor is very engaging, but it is really hard for me to sit still for 2 1/2 hours at a time to watch the class. I have completed two of the eight papers for the class thus far and have gotten A’s on both. I struggled quite a bit with writing my first case study, which dealt with environmental ethics. I procrastinated for several weeks in writing it and honestly did not expect it to get a very good grade. I’m pleased that it did. Now, as a result of the procrastination on that paper, I’m very behind my own self-imposed schedule for completing the class. I was planning to be done with the entire class last week, but it appears that I will be finishing in the middle of March at best now. I have four more 2-5 page case studies to write, one more chapter to read, a Personal Proverb essay to write and a comprehensive case study to write. That’s a whole lot of writing that needs to happen in the near future!
Social: We have not really had much time to have guests for dinner lately. Jim has been really busy with work at the church and I’ve been preoccupied with homework. We’ve enjoyed having our friends, Nicole and John for dinner in January and have also had a couple of parties in February. I threw Jim a birthday party that brought around fifteen to twenty people from the church to our apartment. It was a great time. This past weekend I hosted my first Sex and the City party. Between five of us we drank a bottle and a half of Cosmo mix, enjoyed some baked brie, mozzarella sticks and chocolate cake and the best of the fashion episodes. A very successful evening that is likely to be repeated in a couple of months. When I went out to the suburbs for my grant-writing class I had the chance to meet with a good friend for lunch. It was really nice to catch up with her. Jim and I also experienced our first opera earlier this month. A very generous couple from the congregation had given us tickets for Christmas and then arranged for us to have a lovely meal at a very expensive restaurant prior to the performance for Jim’s birthday. The opera was better than I anticipated, but this is probably due to the sub-titles projected above the stage, which made it easier to follow along. It’s not something that I would intentionally go see, but it was enjoyable.
Church: As usual church has been quite the time consumer. The January and February Women’s Network meetings revolved around our latest project-the Chili Cook-Off, which I did the promotion and marketing aspects of. The Chili Cook-Off was this past Sunday and a grand success. We had fourteen people enter, which is awesome for the first time it has been held! I don’t think we made any money, but we were able to cover our costs and everyone that was there insists that the event happen again next year. In terms of community-building it was a fantastic success. In January Jim and I attended a workshop at the church called The Power of We. It was two-hours a day for an entire weekend and had a very good turn out of around 50 people. It focused on communications in the marital relationship-none of the information was new, but it was entertaining. The church also held a Super Bowl party. They projected it on a big screen and everyone brought their own beverages and a dish to pass. It was a great idea…too bad the game left a little to be desired.
Well, that’s the scoop from Chi-town. It is amazing to me that it is already just about March….and I’m booked up throughout all of that too! This weekend we have dinner plans with John and Nicole on Saturday night. Next week I am going to make the trek home to replenish our cheese supply, so I’ll be in Wisconsin March 7-11. The following Saturday our Finnish friend, Samuli, arrives to stay with us for ten days. He has not yet been to the States, so this should be quite the adventure. I am also taking him to St. Louis March 25-27 and will begin apartment hunting at that time. What do ya know-we’re already at the end of March then! How quickly time is passing…it wont be long until we have to leave and go back to St. Louis!
Work: I’ve been adding about five hours a week for the yoga studio from the comfort of my own home. We are preparing for a big transition at the yoga studio coming in July. At that time we are moving from two studios down to one studio. Along with that we are completely revamping the set up of our classes. Currently we have many drop-in classes available for our students because we have adequate space to accommodate varying numbers of students. However, in July we will be moving to pre-registered sessions only. This requires a discontinuation of selling class packages and establishing a lot of new policies to govern the new pre-registered sessions, which has required a lot of research to see what other studios, YMCAs, etc. have in place. In transitioning to one studio it also has required some massive cleaning out of supplies, files, equipment, etc.. Tentatively they are planning to shut down for a week or so at the end of June to rearrange the studio, do some painting, etc..
This move will be very beneficial to the studio. Pre-registration for all of the classes will really cut down on the administrative overhead….in fact my job as it currently stands would be nearly eliminated! The last week or so I’ve found myself extremely bored with my work at the studio. It has been a bit quite there lately and all of my tasks are pretty routine. The bulk of my time is spent entering class sign-in sheets, (one of the things that will not need to be done when we go to strict pre-registration), confirming workshop participants, (also will be eliminated), and responding to e-mail or phone messages from instructors and students. The other parts of my job include setting the class schedules, updating the website, creating flyers and promotional materials. Unfortunately this represents only a very small fraction of my time. Oh well…it’s just a part-time gig.
St. James Foundation: This has finally gotten going. I put together a proposal for the Foundation in terms of the scope of work and compensation and they agreed to it. My main task to focus on between now and June is planning the golf outing. I figure that will take about 80-100 hours, so I should make about $1200 on that project. I am really excited about the golf outing. It should be a lot of fun and quite the expansive project to plan and execute! My big goal is to increase the number of participants from the mid-forties to sixty golfers….hopefully I’ll pull it off! I am also going to work on setting up a web presence for the Foundation, which will also help promote the golf outing. Earlier this month the Foundation supported me in taking a class in grant-writing. It was phenomenal! However, it was very much an eye-opener into how much time will be involved in writing a grant and I am not sure that the Foundation is ready to make that kind of commitment, (financially). I was told that I should plan to spend at least three hours per page of a grant. Most grants run at least twenty pages. That’s a whole lot of time, (and therefore money), to invest in something that is not likely to have any return! It is highly unlikely that any of your first half dozen grants will even be accepted! Ouch!
School: So I’ve started my graduate work now as of January 1. I’m currently taking Business Ethics. For once I have video lectures available to me on the Internet. The professor is very engaging, but it is really hard for me to sit still for 2 1/2 hours at a time to watch the class. I have completed two of the eight papers for the class thus far and have gotten A’s on both. I struggled quite a bit with writing my first case study, which dealt with environmental ethics. I procrastinated for several weeks in writing it and honestly did not expect it to get a very good grade. I’m pleased that it did. Now, as a result of the procrastination on that paper, I’m very behind my own self-imposed schedule for completing the class. I was planning to be done with the entire class last week, but it appears that I will be finishing in the middle of March at best now. I have four more 2-5 page case studies to write, one more chapter to read, a Personal Proverb essay to write and a comprehensive case study to write. That’s a whole lot of writing that needs to happen in the near future!
Social: We have not really had much time to have guests for dinner lately. Jim has been really busy with work at the church and I’ve been preoccupied with homework. We’ve enjoyed having our friends, Nicole and John for dinner in January and have also had a couple of parties in February. I threw Jim a birthday party that brought around fifteen to twenty people from the church to our apartment. It was a great time. This past weekend I hosted my first Sex and the City party. Between five of us we drank a bottle and a half of Cosmo mix, enjoyed some baked brie, mozzarella sticks and chocolate cake and the best of the fashion episodes. A very successful evening that is likely to be repeated in a couple of months. When I went out to the suburbs for my grant-writing class I had the chance to meet with a good friend for lunch. It was really nice to catch up with her. Jim and I also experienced our first opera earlier this month. A very generous couple from the congregation had given us tickets for Christmas and then arranged for us to have a lovely meal at a very expensive restaurant prior to the performance for Jim’s birthday. The opera was better than I anticipated, but this is probably due to the sub-titles projected above the stage, which made it easier to follow along. It’s not something that I would intentionally go see, but it was enjoyable.
Church: As usual church has been quite the time consumer. The January and February Women’s Network meetings revolved around our latest project-the Chili Cook-Off, which I did the promotion and marketing aspects of. The Chili Cook-Off was this past Sunday and a grand success. We had fourteen people enter, which is awesome for the first time it has been held! I don’t think we made any money, but we were able to cover our costs and everyone that was there insists that the event happen again next year. In terms of community-building it was a fantastic success. In January Jim and I attended a workshop at the church called The Power of We. It was two-hours a day for an entire weekend and had a very good turn out of around 50 people. It focused on communications in the marital relationship-none of the information was new, but it was entertaining. The church also held a Super Bowl party. They projected it on a big screen and everyone brought their own beverages and a dish to pass. It was a great idea…too bad the game left a little to be desired.
Well, that’s the scoop from Chi-town. It is amazing to me that it is already just about March….and I’m booked up throughout all of that too! This weekend we have dinner plans with John and Nicole on Saturday night. Next week I am going to make the trek home to replenish our cheese supply, so I’ll be in Wisconsin March 7-11. The following Saturday our Finnish friend, Samuli, arrives to stay with us for ten days. He has not yet been to the States, so this should be quite the adventure. I am also taking him to St. Louis March 25-27 and will begin apartment hunting at that time. What do ya know-we’re already at the end of March then! How quickly time is passing…it wont be long until we have to leave and go back to St. Louis!