This is it, the last day of summer vacation! Actually, I am looking forward to returning to school and seeing many of my friends and students. It should be a tough year though since I have 5 new math teachers who need mentoring and training, plus I am teaching AP Statistics again, and have a new textbook and curriculum for Honors Algebra 2. My main focus this year must be not getting as stressed as I did last year so that my back does not go out again. That was definitely not a pleasant experience.

I did not accomplish nearly as much as I had hoped to do this summer, mostly because I lost nearly the entire month of August. I still have another half-dozen chapters to edit in the Tibet book, plus write the proposal and outline and finish selecting potential publishers to submit to. However, I usually have very little available writing time during school, and this year should be busier than usual. It was a good thing that I cut back the frequency of Visions of Paradise to twice per year, since I doubt I will have the time for four issues anyway. I will also still have all the extracurricular activities I had last year, including Target Teach Parsippany, Morris Area Math Alliance, PTHEA vice-president, Asian Club Advisor, Newspaper co-advisor, as well as returning as Math Team Advisor, all of which will take a lot of time as well. Two years ago I was determined to cut back on some activities, and I did give up Math Team for a year, but with Eric gone to PHHS, and Megan on maternity leave, I will have it at least for one more year. Hopefully my brother David will be my co-advisor, so next year he and Megan can do it together.

All you students and teachers reading this, have a great year!