I've Had Better Weeks

This is a day where I should be exited. I'm going on my first trip ever for work to a conference in Chicago. But I'm not. Partly because I don't really know why I'm going other than I fill a leadership role at work as the president of my employee group for the campus. The conference is the annual meeting of the Higher learning Commission and we are in the first year of our reaccreditation process so we are going to learn about changes to the process and how we can work to more easily navigate this process. And I'd like to say I'm interested in the process but I'm not. It doesn't have a lot to do with my job directly or indirectly and it doesn't do anything to improve the quality of education that we provide to students or improve student success as far as I know. I admit I could be wrong because I don't fully understand the process and that may change over the weekend as i attend seminars about different subjects. The one thing I do believe however is that the number one factor in relationship to student engagement and success is putting the student in a class with an instructor that cares about the students success and is engaged with them. Everything else is gravy.

I might feel better about the trip if I wasn't also just getting over having the flu for a week and if we had not been spending all of our free time house hunting without success over the last 3 weeks. We've looked at about a dozen houses and made offers on three of them but have not had any success lately which is very frustrating and defeating for me. I've also put on some weight again and my exercise routine is not a regular and it needs to be. Those are at least some things I can get some control over and actually started doing today. Completed a five mile run today and plan on running thirty miles over the next four days in Chicago.

I think the trip would be more fun if Amy was going but someone needs to watch Elizabeth so Amy is staying home. I may need to take some time away and go do something fun in Chicago like the Field Museum or go wandering around downtown or the lakefront. Either way I'm sure it will be an adventure. I'll work on my attitude tonight and try to get more excited about this endeavor. At the very least I'll have my Kindle with me and I'll get some reading done. That's a positive right?