The SPOT (Fall, 2023): PSYCH 282

The SPOT are, of course, the Student Perspectives Of Teaching, taking the place of the USRIs. Here are some selected comments from students in PSYCH 282: Behaviour Modification from Fall term, 2023. (If it's not immediately obvious, my comments in parentheses are in full-on snark mode.)

“I like the organization of the textbook better than the lectures. It seems more logical.”

(But my lectures follow the chapters of the textbook exactly. I don’t know what else I could do except read directly from the textbook. Here’s what others thought, below.)

“The lecture material and the textbook aligned extremely well”
“The textbook did have lots of overlap but it helped reinforce and strengthen my understanding.”

💀

“It would be nice to have a video to watch that explains the self-management project in a bit more detail”

(I wrote an 11-page document all about: The Self-Management Project. Is it not long enough? Not detailed enough? I also talked about the project throughout the course in lecture. Sorry if that’s not enough for you, but I’m trying to treat you as adults.)

“There were immensely to many terms needing to be remembered for each test. A non-cumulative design for each test would be more conducive to a better learning environment.”

(The midterms were not cumulative, although this university-level course does build upon itself. All of those terms are part of the course content. Part of learning about behaviour modification is learning the language of the field. This is not part of the “learning environment.” You just want the exams to be easier, right?)

“notes could've been in greek"

(Προσπάθησα να κάνω τα πάντα κατανοητά.)

“Class lectures were structured into 3-50 minute lectures throughout the week which felt like a really good pace to go about some of the heavy technical terms, subtopics and jargon that this course involves. The syllabus outlined everything in a very comprehensive and effective manner detailing what topics are going to be covered each week and the major due dates for the self management project."

(See? This person gets it.)

“I think at times the self-management project instructions and expectations could have been clearer. There were a lot of questions asking clarification about a lot of things. I also found the scoring rubric to be confusing. The point deduction and addition system in it was confusing.”
“I found the requirements for the self-management project clear”

(These responses were literally one right after the other.)

“I didn't like the fill in the blank lecture notes. I found it distracting trying to make sure I was getting all the blanks filled in and would miss blanks often when I was trying to pay attention to the lecture.”
“The taking of the notes by filling the blanks really increased my in class attention. Was a good idea.”

(Some like it, some hate it. You don’t have to use them at all, you know. You are free to write everything down yourself. As I said in the first lecture, if you miss some blanks, you can come up to me at the end and I’ll help you out and give you the blanks you missed. Also, I think people were sharing them on Discord. So you won’t miss anything if you just put in a bit of extra effort.)

“I hate textbook exclusive testable knowledge. Everything testable should be covered in lectures.”

(Reading is an important skill. Yes, it takes effort. You sign up for my course, I assume that you want to learn things--and develop your skills. No?)

“There were a plethora of resources available on eClass and on the instructor's main course website. Literally everything from supplemental videos, Textbook answer key guides, assignment video tutorials, ePoll question sets, customized worksheets for several of the topics we learned throughout the course, substitution recorded lecture videos for the classes the professor unfortunately had to miss, a Zoom link to access some lectures when the class became a hybrid class, to even appealing, simplified 1 page infographics that made processing certain concepts and topics that much easier.”

(Gee, when you put it that way, it sure looks like I put a lot of thought and effort into teaching this class!)

“Prof posted a recording on zoom but did not give us the password required to access the recording.”

(When you click the video, Zoom copies the passcode to your clipboard and a message on screen says, “Copy Passcode to Clipboard.” This is how Zoom works, and I can’t change it. Sorry if it was too confusing for you.)

“the textbook did not align with the notes in too many instances”

(“Too many”? There were five. And I pointed each one out to you explicitly. I figure second-year university students can handle that.)

“This course has strongly shaped how I see psychology as a field. As well I have made great strides in my own personal wellbeing”
“I had no idea about behaviour modification, and despite this being a hard course, I am highly motivated to continue more in this field, especially due to Loepelmann's amazing humour, knowledge, and overall awesomeness.”

(Well that’s pretty darn cool. You keep me going, people; you keep me going.)

“Need to read the textbook if you want to get over 80 on exams”

(Is this a surprise or something? I did say half of the exam questions are from the textbook. And why are you writing this comment to me? This isn't rmp.)

“More practice exam or questions would have been better”

(So, having dozens of ePoll questions, dozens of worksheet questions, dozens on online chapter questions, and literally hundreds of practice quiz and practice test questions in the textbook are not enough? Really? How many are enough? Thousands? smh)

“had lots of practice exams”

(Yes. Yes, I did.)

“The one project that got split into 5 parts has a certain amount of points for each section but I found it difficult to tell how you were doing percentage/letter grade wise”

(You just have to do a calculation: the weighted mean. Here’s an online calculator: https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/math/weighted-average-calculator.html. If you are can’t do this, then I am sad that your math teachers have all let you down.)

“dont get to keep our tests”

(Yep, just like every other PSYCH course that has multiple choice exams. However, you could go to the exam viewing and spend 2 hours looking it over, though. You’re welcome!)

“THEY DID NOT MARK ANYTHING ON TIME”

(I have to stand up for my TAs here. First, what even does “on time” mean? Were there some deadlines to have marked material back? Did I make any promises about when your results would be available? Answer: No. Marking almost 300 completely different assignment submissions is a massive job. It’s not the same as a TA marking answers to math problems in which everyone is supposed to get the exact same right answer. They did a damn good job and I appreciate it. More patience you need.)

“If anything it felt slow paced at times”
“Too fast sometimes”

(Ah, a classic complaint from two students in the same course. I go both too fast and too slow. In the same class.)

“I felt that the self management project was useless as we as students are already struggling with the material, we don’t need a full on project that is designed to change one of our behaviours when we can barely keep up as it is with not only this course but other courses as well.”
“The test were less about knowing the elements of the course and more about almost tricking us questions as it was close to the material but way to challenging to decifer.”
“Midterm 1 was very fair and representative of the course content as well as the self-management project which incorporated the occasional subject content of the course close to the date that it was actually taught.”

(Maybe--and this is just a thought--maybe different people experience the same course in different ways. Maybe some people struggle more than others. I could simplify my course content to satisfy everyone. But then ? Is my course worse than, say, a second-year CHEM course? Or a second-year ENGL course?)

“He is a WONDERFUL human and made the lectures incredibly enjoyable to attend!!! I would definitely take a class with him again. He is incredibly funny, engaging, and definitely passionate and knowledgeable about what he teaches!!! Definitely one of the best psych profs I have had, he is so organized and prepared”
“Dr. Loepelmann is one of the best professors I have had in university. You can tell that he wants people to succeed and go to great lengths to ensure that people are understanding the content of his lecture.”
“Dr. Loepelmann is an excellent professor. He makes the class and the topics more interesting with the videos played to us during class. He explains the topics in a concise way.”
“The energetic environment made me excited to learn and I always looked forward to coming to classes.”
“The environment wasn't too serious either: the expectations were mostly all clear and he was so incredibly kind and funny.”
“This course honestly broke my spirit.”

(Well, that’s what I’m aiming for.)

Why aren't you studying?

The Remote Delivery - Reviews

I'm going through (cleaning out?) some of the stuff I have left over from our abrupt switch to remote teaching and learning due to the Covid pandemic. I was online almost two full years, from March 2020 to the end of February 2022. (I previously wrote about that experience.)

(← crappy AI-generated image, thanks to Microsoft Bing Image Creator)

I never went through my evaluations and feedback comments (partly because the Department of Psychology has stopped giving out in-house teaching awards--which is another topic entirely). So here they are. Sorry, I've lost track of which courses these are from, and exactly which term. It all just blends together now.

“I really enjoyed the approach he took for the remote learning. Many profs seemed they had no clue how to go about it; some profs didn't even give anything like videos or notes. He was really fast acting in such a stressful and unique situation. I hope he knows that his hardwork and dedication to his students and his classes don't go unnoticed."

“Thank you for staying so consistent and working so hard. As a student watching and seeing that, it is truly inspiring.”

“The speed of which the instructor moved his material online. Some of my other instructors took a while to do so (which is understandable since it all caught us off guard) but it is really nice that Karsten Loepelmann had a lecture online the day the in-class lectures closed. He always updated on time as well which helped to keep me on schedule rather than waiting around for the next lectures to come.”

“The notes with blanks allowed me to listen more in class which helped me with my understanding of the material and concepts. I appreciated the ability to follow along with the PowerPoints while he voiced over the lectures. As well, the introduction and conclusion videos really helped and was something some other professors did not do.”

“I personally found that I was more motivated to engage with lectures during the set class time when they were initially conducted live, and I think some others may feel the same way. However, in the youtube format, I felt I was able to better absorb and understand the material as I could replay parts that didn't immediately register so falling a bit behind was traded off for clarity which isn't so bad in my opinion.”

“This course was very well suited to my style of learning and was one of the best classes I have taken in 4 years. The transition to remote learning was very smooth. Thank you for all the effort and enthusiasm you brought to this course, especially when everything went haywire.”

“The remote delivered lectures were of excellent quality; definitely appreciated the humour in them as well. Whether it's knowing the course material inside out, preparing well-thought out test questions, or editing his Youtube videos, you can tell this guy goes the extra mile and more.”

“Karsten was an awesome lecturer, he made the online classes probably as entertaining as they could be and he was really easy to stay engaged with. My only complaint is that there was absolutely no way to review our midterm exams and the final is cumulative so it’s impossible to know which areas we need to work on for the final.”

“Lecturer displayed content in an interesting way. Great quality lectures with great sound. Was pleasing to the ear to listen for more than 3hrs a session. Enjoyed this course overall.”

(More than 3 hours? You poor soul! Take a break, for heaven’s sake! Gah!)

“If you are going to do more asynchronous videos in future semesters, break them into smaller, better focused videos so that each one feels more self-contained and to better space out the watching to execute the spacing effect of learning.”

(Excellent application of course content. Sorry about the length. What happens is I get carried away and lose track of time. And I hate chopping a video when I'm in the middle of explaining something.)

“I was very impressed by Dr. Loepelmann's delivery of this course given the circumstances. The effort put in was noticed and appreciated!”

“I feel like there is so much content to be covered, and the online videos make are longer than class time would be. It is a lot of information to try to teach myself and remember.”

(I didn’t work out if they were longer or not. If there were longer, it’s not because I added more content to the course. I probably talked more slowly than I would in face-to-face classes, because I’m not getting feedback on whether you’re understanding everything so I just go slow.)

“Absolutely outstanding professor. He did very well at making online courses fun and interactive. Very engaging and well spoken.”

(Aw, thanks!)

Why aren't you studying?

The New LMS

LMSs are boring. Or rather, they should be boring--the less excitement, the better. First: What the heck is an LMS? A Learning Management System is used by institutions to deliver courses. They can deliver a course fully online, or be used to supplement an in-person course by hosting the syllabus, allowing assignments to be submitted, and deliver marks. So eClass is the UAlberta LMS. At least, that's our name for it. Our LMS is an instance of the open-source LMS Moodle. I'm not completely sure why "eClass" was chosen, but it's likely because no one knows what a "Moodle" is. It sounds like a cross between a muddle and a noodle, which makes no sense. So it was probably coined to make it clearer that it's the system for Electronic Class.

Previously, we used other LMSs: WebCT and a later version, called Vista (Microsoft Windows Vista was released around the same time, and boy did that lead to some confusion). At the time, the provincial government bought a license for WebCT for every post-secondary institution in the province. (I know: hard to believe. This was at a time when the government actually gave a shit about post-secondary education.) After everyone had gotten used to WebCT, the company was taken over by Blackboard, who wanted to phase it out. At that point, about 10 years ago, the University of Alberta faced a decision: force everyone to go with a new, unfamiliar Blackboard LMS or force everyone to go with a different, unfamiliar LMS. That's when we Moodled! (Ugh, sorry.)

In 2000, I taught a hybrid course (part online/part in-person), when we didn't have any LMS. I had to use a lot of hand-coded HTML. There were no lecture videos back then, just online notes and discussion forums. I wasn't interested in continuing that, and had no use for LMSs. I grudgingly learned how to use Moodle, but still relied mostly on my own hand-coded website. Again, this was before assignments were submitted online: students still handed in labs and term papers on, well, actual paper.

Grudgingly, I learned how to use eClass, gradually putting more assignments online. Some people used eClass to make MOOCs (massive open online courses) like Dino 101. But there was just no need for me to learn more. I mean, it would take something like a global pandemic to make me--and everyone else--re-examine boring old LMSs.

Oh, right. Pandemic. That's why we need an LMS.

When Covid hit, many of us instructors were in the same situation: I need to know how to do everything online, and I need to know it now. Lecture videos. Assignments. Exams. Grades. This was one of the most difficult aspects of the abrupt shift to remote teaching and learning. Many of us were constantly pinging eClass support, and when they became overwhelmed, we turned to each other for help.

By no means do I consider myself an eClass expert, but I was able to help a graduate student who was teaching their first class online. They even bought me a very nice bottle of wine as a thank-you present! So now that I'm fluent in eClass, now what? This is what: the email that sent a cold shiver of fear down my spine in September: "Transitioning to a New Learning Management System." Wha--?

That's right, starting in Fall, 2024 (and rolling out to everyone by Fall, 2025) is a new LMS. Moodle will be no more.

There are a few good reasons to ditch Moodle. There were several high-profile outages of eClass during the worst possible time: during online final exams. This even hit me in December of 2020, when eClass crashed right before my PSYCH 367 final exam. (Students were given the option to write the final at another time, or allow their term marks to serve as their final grade: 14 out of 123 students chose to write the final.) Also, even though Moodle is free open-source software, the university has to pay for servers to host it, and for developers to maintain it (fixing bugs, adding new features). All of these costs start to get pretty expensive, so going with a hosted option looks like a better option.

A company hosts the LMS, running and maintaining the servers. They may add features (maybe). And they will covert existing eClass sections to their new format so we don't have to create new ones from scratch. This last one is a verrrrrrry sore spot for a lot of instructors. We spent so much time over the last 4 years learning the ins and outs of Moodle, and now we have to learn something completely different!? There are some existing custom plug-ins that may not work in a new system. (Departments like math & stats and physics use custom software to manage their grading workflow, for example.) Most other universities in Canada that are similar to the University of Alberta have already moved to other, hosted LMSs. Even UCalgary uses D2L. I mean, c'mon. Even Calgary.

So, it's going to happen, no matter what. What's the new system going to be? I don't know; it hasn't been decided yet. But the timeline is pretty short--we should all know by the end of the month. And then the new learning curve begins. A note to students: please, please have patience with us. We're all going to be trying our best to learn this new system, and there are going to be glitches.

(One final thing. The University of Alberta provides tech support to MacEwan University, who are also using Moodle. If we ditch Moodle, it kind of puts MacEwan in a difficult spot. Maybe they'll end up hiring the eClass support staff who will inevitably be let go.)

Why aren't you studying?

Update 2/26/2024:
After much delay, it's finally been announced: we're moving to Canvas. Yay?

The Office (Good News and Bad News)

You never want to hear the words "There's asbestos in your office." That was the first bad news. It actually followed the good news of "We're cleaning the floor of your office." It's nice to look forward to a spring cleaning after a long winter of tracking snow, dirt, and muck into my office. But it's not really nice to open the door to my office and see that Bee Clean ripped up the flooring. I complained about this and a guy came and put down black tape. That's it--no fixing or replacing. At this point, I didn't even know that there was asbestos under the flooring; they only told me about that years later.

Does this look carcinogenic to you?

"No problem," he thought optimistically. "If it's a hazard, they would do something about it." But then the UCP took office and cut half a billion dollars and counting from higher education. There was no money for anything--not even asbestos abatement. And then Covid hit, and I taught remotely for almost two years. I guess that's good news? The fact that I wasn't in my office, being exposed to carcinogens. Okay, yes. That's good news.

Remote teaching eventually came to an end and I went back to my office. My asbestos-ridden, cancer-causing office. This spring, though, there was a glimmer of hope. Scarce money was being allocated to asbestos remediation. Yup, offices on the third floor would be completely redone. That's some good news, all right! The bad news is that my office is on the second floor, and there wasn't enough money for those offices. I looked jealously on as my colleagues packed up their offices. They would soon be asbestos-free, with spiffy new university-standard offices. This is the standard offices that new faculty get when they're hired: fresh paint, choice of flooring, new ceiling tiles, new window blinds. But not me: I'm old, not new.

But then--from out of nowhere--an email. Good news! More money had been allocated to redoing offices on the second floor! Except, as I peered through the documents, it wasn't so good. I'd be getting new ceiling tiles, and having the walls of my office painted. Wait, what? That's it? That can't be right. Every other office on my floor has either been completely redone (for new faculty), or was now on the list to be redone--except my office. That's, well, Bad News.

(Digression: What's the deal with ceiling tiles? The next time you're in the Biological Sciences Building, look up at all the gross, stained ceiling tiles. This building has leaks. It leaks a lot. When it leaks, it stains the ceiling tiles. Better not to look up. It's gross.)

 

I firmly outlined my case and eventually received (you see where this is going?): Good News. They would redo my office after all. It's just that, well, the renovations would start in the summer and run pretty close to the start of fall term. But there were a couple of weeks of buffer time in between, so that shouldn't be a problem. Right? Deep breath, and relax...

Packing up the office.

It took me four full days to pack up my office. Over 25 years worth of textbooks, papers, and knick-knacks. And an opportunity to pare it all down. (Marie Kondo, eat your heart out.) I went through every single thing in my office, recycling a few hundred kilos worth of old textbooks and papers, and boxing up the rest. Here's what it looked like:

 

Boxes, boxes, boxes!

(There was another bad news item that happened. The movers got tired (I guess?) and went for a break, leaving my office door wide open and all my stuff just sitting there unattended. Anyone could have just walked in and taken whatever they wanted. As if we don't have enough problems with theft as it is. Grr!)

And then I was done packing. I put it all out of my mind. There won't be any more bad news! Family vacation time in Victoria! Workers would be ripping up floored, remediating asbestos, and generally beavering away getting everything ready well before the first day of class. Except... Except not. Bad news: "delays" in getting the carpet. Which meant delays in getting everything else done, and getting all my stuff moved back. My greatest fear came true: move-in day was scheduled for September 8, with classes starting on September 5. So I'd be without an office for the first week? The busiest week of the year? Time to complain again.

Kudos to my department's executive assistant, who found me a spare office to use. I'll count that as good news, I guess.

A temporary office is better than no office?

And then, at last, finally, it was done.

 
Hmm, stripier than I thought.

Move-in day followed soon after. I've spent every spare moment over the past few weeks unpacking boxes, organizing stuff, and reconnecting computer equipment. After hours and hours of work, here's what it looks like now:

That's more like it!

All done! Good news! But...but wait. I noticed something. I stepped closer. I peered at my blinds. My old, unchanged, not updated blinds. Oh, they'll be replaced "at some point." So, some bad news after all.

Overall though, I am pleased with the reno. The office looks pretty nice. I finally have carpet like my colleagues have. And the reno gave me the opportunity to get rid of a lot of stuff I don't need. Thing are more organized, and there's a lot more room for my stuff:

Now that's good news!

Why aren't you studying?

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2023 edition)

How was my summer? Busy--even busier than usual. So much going on.

As usual, I spend the majority of my time prepping for the next academic year. Sigh. Technical stuff: Manually converted all of my web pages to HTML5, and tried my hand at Inkscape to create vector images of the logos and graphics on my web pages. Hopefully, everything looks better on mobile devices now. Content stuff: Developed a new lecture topic on information design, which I should have done long ago. I got three books to get me up to speed (of course!).

🚙 In the spring, I got a new car: a Hyundai Tucson hybrid. I really wanted the plug-in hybrid but didn't want to wait 2 years (!) to get one. It often takes a while get comfortable with a new car, but not with this one. It's smooth and easy to drive, and it gets even better gas mileage than my old hybrid.

🔥 Then the wildfires hit--and kept on coming. So much destruction and chaos. My heart goes out to those disrupted and displaced by the terrible fires this year. Yeah, we had a lot of smoke to deal with in the city, but at least we were all safe. I hope the rebuilding goes swiftly.

🏖 Took the family to Aspen Beach on Gull Lake, as we do every summer. Chased butterflies and ate ice cream.

It's melting!

 

🦋 Then we headed to the Calgary Zoo for more butterflies. (Clearly, my wife and daughters are big fans of butterflies.)

So. Many. Butterflies.

🐱‍🐉 Next up: Drumheller. It's been five years since we were last at the Royal Tyrrell Museum; it's always worth the trip. And then: hoodoos.

Hoodoo?

 

🎬 There were a lot of blockbusters this summer. I didn't get around to doing the Barbenheimer thing. My mission, which I chose to accept, was seeing Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (Part One). There's a lot of punctuation in that title.

Mission: Completed!

🎠 I got to spend time with my youngest daughter at K-Days. Thankfully, she's not into rides (me neither). It was all about the snacks and the petting zoo.

🌷🌸🌹🌺🌼 The highlight for us though was our first real holiday in five years, and the first real summer vacation we've taken as a family, going to Victoria. The Butchart Gardens! (Flowers, flowers, FLOWERS!) Victoria Butterfly Gardens! (Butterflies, amirite?) Craigdarroch and Hatley castles! Frickin' Delights Donuts! (Owned and run by ex-Edmontonians--given them a try!) Trans-Canada Highway Mile 0 and the Terry Fox memorial statue! (Got choked up a little bit.)

(This is a pretty good photo. 😎)

(You think these look good? You should try them. Frickin'!)

RIP, Terry. GOAT!

Whew! Lots of fun, and way better than last year when I broke my toe. Way better. Un/fortunately, I also had some good news and then some bad news. But that's another post.

Why aren't you studying?

The Toe

The broken toe, that is. Ugh, yes, I have a broken toe: distal metatarsal on the third toe of my right foot. I broke it exactly two weeks before classes. No, there's no interesting story. I'd like to say that it was run over after I grabbed a child out of the way of an out-of-control bus. Like something out of the movie Speed. But no. The real story is, well, pretty dumb.

I came home, took off my shoes, and took a step. Unfortunately, I happened to step with my full weight onto a sharp little rock. This came as a surprise to me, along with the intense pain it caused. I reacted by freaking out and sort-of jumping off the rock and sort-of kicking my leg out. No problem, except that there was a door frame occupying the space where my leg kicked out, and my foot smashed into it. The worst part of all this--aside from my broken toe--is that there was no damage at all to the door frame. C'mon, at least a crack? No?

(What was a rock doing in the house? My guess is that it was leftover gravel that was on the roads from last winter. The city does a lousy job of cleaning it all up in the spring in my neighbourhood, and there are piles of sand and gravel everywhere. Rocks get stuck in the bottom of running shoes and fall out onto the floor of the house. I found the rock and kept it as a "souvenir" but then my wife threw it away. It was pretty big. For a little rock.)

The X-ray showed it was broken, so I was off to the medical supply store to get my strappy boot. It's actually pretty comfortable. I may continue to wear it even after my toe heals.

The worst part was not the pain, but knowing that classes started in two weeks. That's not enough time to heal up. I'd have to hobble around campus. Even worse, one of my classes was in the Fine Arts Building--1 kilometre from my office, door-to-door. Ugh. I timed it: it took me 25 minutes to limp there, and another 25 to shuffle back.

(Yeah, Google Maps says 850 m from building-to-building, but my Fitbit says 1.0 km door-to-door.)

The prognosis is 4 to 6 weeks for recovery. It's already been 4 weeks, and I am starting to feel better. I know this because the other day, on the way to that faraway class, I actually passed a couple of bros in HUB Mall. Sure, they were wrapped up in their conversation, but this was the first time I passed another human being in a month!

I'm actually supposed to be doing better than this, but my medical advice was to "stay off your feet." Ha! As if. Tell that to the people in Exams and Timetabling who assigned me a classroom on the opposite side of campus. Here's a typical result from my Fitbit:

(14,641 steps is not exactly "staying off my feet.")

Being temporarily disabled, however, has given me perspective on what mobility challenged people face every day. There are a lot of stairs on campus. North Campus is pretty spread out. And even just psychology courses are scheduled in buildings all across campus. It's really opened my eyes.

So if you see someone who has a mobility aid, or is just hobbling along maybe hold the door open for them. Some people may not want--or need--any help. But a limping guy in a fashionable boot would appreciate it.

Why aren't you studying?

(P.S. In a weird twist, I'm not teaching in FAB anymore. But that's another post...)

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2022 Edition)

With COVID-19 on the decline, I was looking forward to my summer vacation this year! So my family and I...well, um. We did a bunch of things that we do every year. Home repairs. Calgary Zoo. (We were in Calgary during the Stampede--and we did not go to the Stampede. Kinda tells you a lot about us...) Cannoli from Sweet Capone's. Lake. Here's a photo from Gull Lake:

I mean, look at it. Wow, what beautiful...mud? And this photo has most of the beach/shoreline cropped out. Gull Lake is shallow to begin with, but I don't think I've ever seen it this low. Anyway, I'm not much of a beach person. I'm a sitting-in-the-shade-and-reading person. So that's what I did. No photos of that.

At least Bow Falls is same-old-same-old gorgeous:

But honestly, this photo could have been from any day over the past 20 years or so. Sigh.

Look, I'm trying to give you insight into my life and the things I do over the summer. At final exams in April, some students say "Have a great summer!" on their way out. That's nice, but first I have to teach a spring class. And then I end up spending almost every day of my actual summer catching up on improvements to my courses that I haven't been able to do for the past three years. (I think I made more changes/updates/improvement this summer than I've ever made before.) But do you want to hear about that? Probably not.

Okay, but! There is something new. My eldest daughter graduated high school, got three scholarships and is now a student at the University of Alberta!

Yeah, that's most definitely something new! (If you see her on campus, be sure to...not say anything to her. If you do, she'll complain that I put her picture on my blog without telling her. Shhh!)

Anyway, who has time to read (or write) a blog post when the new term has started?

Why aren't you studying?