"I'm a Back"

For those not familiar with Super Mario Brothers for Wii, this is what one of the characters says after they die and are allowed to re-enter the game- "I'm a Back". I thought that was the perfect title to begin the blog post after my long hiatus.

Firstly, let me just say that everything is GREAT! I truly do appreciate all of the emails, facebook messages, texts, and in-person requests making sure that everything was okay with us since I wasn't blogging. Let me explain what I have been up to for the past few months. In August, we went on a trip to Utah for the Kunz family reunion and celebrated my 30th birthday with my family. I went European and took a blogging break for that month and I very much intended to resume blogging in September.

However, with 10 days before the beginning of the quarter, Santa Clara University called me and asked if I would be willing to fill in last minute for one of the other full time professors who had an "emergency" (not sure what) but couldn't teach the class. The books had already been ordered (there were 5 and I was only familiar with 2 of them) but I was able to get a very rough syllabus together for teaching Social Problems in the U.S. I really LOVED this class- maybe even a little more than Intro- although I would definitely change some of the readings for next time. But, this class is the reason for my blogging hiatus. I was working 30 hours a week doing qualitative research in addition to teaching the class, which takes up an incredible amount of time to prepare and grade, so any free time I had was not spent on the computer, but squeezing in some cultural adventures- primarily with my husband- to keep my sanity :-) We also spent 2 weeks in Utah for the holidays, together with both our families so much time was spent having fun there. Thus, blogging suffered BUT I'm a back now since I only have ONE job for now- doing research at Palo Alto Medical Foundation- thus leaving me with more time to catalog many of the adventures that we have experienced and will experience.

While I am kind of sad to not be teaching again, since I really do enjoy it so much, I am very happy to have a "break" and reconnect with everyone. Thanks to everyone who has been patient awaiting, and expect much, much more to come for 2011 :-)