Well, summer break is pretty much over.  I know I have Labor Day Weekend, but my school had its Superintendent Conference Days this past week.  That pretty much signals an end to the break.  Not that I had a long one since I worked this summer.  Had 1.5 weeks off, which is similar to Holiday and Spring Break.  So, what exactly did I accomplish or endure?

First of all, this coming school year is going to be rough.  There are a lot of challenges being set up for our students and ourselves.  I’m probably going to end every day exhausted.  The little energy I have left will be used to spend time with my son for homework and Pokemon Go.  On days I don’t have him, I’ll want to get some fresh air as well, but I might not be pushing myself that much once the weather gets cold.  Hopefully, things run smoother than it looks and not only from a teacher assistant perspective.  I have the parent side of school to handle as well.

My son’s schedule isn’t as crazy as it was last year.  Geometry is done and he gets a lunch every day.  The stress is going to be coming from two arenas.  New York has banned all student cellphones in school, so my son is annoyed that he has to keep it in his locker.  It does mean he can’t be sent reminders for later in the day.  We will have to go back to putting notes on his Chromebook, which had another wrinkle.  That would be a certain someone deciding to put notes on it solely for the sake of putting a note on there.  This resulted in him ignoring the ones that were important.  Bringing me to the second issue of the school year, which is that my ex-wife and I are not really on speaking terms.  We communicate in a way that one would call childish and ridiculous because things just fell apart over the summer.  You can tell it’s bad since I’m flat out saying it on a public forum and no longer care about decorum.  I’ve come to realize people that tell you to be secret about this stuff fall into one of two categories:

1. They don’t want to hear about someone else’s problems.  Either our of not caring, embarrassment, or a false sense of protecting someone from themselves.
2. They are the other person in the situation and don’t want the truth to mar their reputation.  So, this is more out of potential shame and ego.

Anyway, all of those messes are going to make it difficult to write Darwin & the Joy Path.  I did finish the prologue and chapter 1, which is great.  I could really only muster one section per day instead of 2-3.  It wasn’t Pokemon Go, but a bunch of other things that had to get done.  Writing also wears me down, so I get tired easily and have trouble mustering the energy to do more.  I’ll be playing it all by ear because it could change on weekends where I don’t have much else to do.  Weekdays are probably not going to happen unless since something is always going on.  There might be the occasional Thursday when I get to do the daily Pokemon stuff before work and have energy by the time I get home.  I won’t hold my breath.

In terms of quality of writing, I think I did okay.  It was mostly dialogue and setting things up as well as one action scene.  My biggest worry was getting Darwin right since he’s very positive and childish.  Being stressed out and not feeling great about things puts his personality at risk.  Thankfully, I managed to keep all of that away from him, but I don’t think I had him styme as much as in previous books.  Part of it might be that he wasn’t put under any stressful situations yet.  Honestly, this is the smoothest opening to an adventure for him because he hasn’t caused any chaos.  Course, I may have already made a mistake by giving his friend a secret that I didn’t initially plan on.  No idea what this secret is going to be.  I’m thinking of it being something mild like he lied about something and feels guilty since Darwin is so trusting.  Be interesting for someone to fear a small lie being revealed and Darwin is just like ‘we all make mistakes’.  It would show great maturing for him, which I do want to demonstrate.

This weekend I have my son, so we’re hanging out and getting things ready for his first day of school.  Family is coming over tomorrow.  We also have the roads in our development being paved starting on Tuesday, which could cause some issues.  They just had to do it during the first week of school.  Praying the day they pick for my block is one where I don’t have my son because I’m not getting him out of here at 6:30 am.  Nothing else is really going on, but writing won’t be touched until next weekend.  Probably only get half of chapter 2 done.  If I can write it all then I’ll be happy.

Goals of the week?

1. Enjoy weekend with son.
2. Get back into the swing of school schedule.
3. Make sure to sleep at least 7 hours a night.
4. Pokemon Go or biking for exercise.
5. Lego and puzzles to relax.
6. Write more of Darwin & the Joy Path if possible.
7. Tinker with ‘Phi Beta Files’ if possible.
8. Schedule more November posts.
9. Try to not lose all faith in humanity.