The fall 2009 semester has come and gone.  Grades are posted, student projects are archived, and class notes are filed.  My desk has not been this clean since August, and neither has my daily calendar.

That does not mean it is time to rest, though.  When the calendar is clean for an extended period of time, I instinctively try to fill it with projects.  “Look at all those days with nothing scheduled on them,” my demons whisper from their perch on my shoulder.  “What wonderful opportunities to complete those projects you haven’t had the time for this semester.”  Against my better judgment, I listen to them.  There’s just something so tempting about being productive.

So, here’s what will fill my calendar for the next few weeks:

— Revise a manuscript that explores evangelical/fundamentalist Christian film reviews in order to develop a normative theory of religious media criticism.  I sent a draft of this manuscript for review at a regional conference, even though I have my doubts that it is in good enough shape for presentation.  It certainly isn’t publishable yet, so I need to give it a little attention.

–Do some research, and draft some preliminary ideas, for a manuscript on religious media criticism that I am co-authoring with Dan Stout.  I think my research on normative theories of religious media criticism will help a little here, but the discussion of how religious faith influences media use and interpretation is so wide that there is room for more original work.

— Do some research, and draft some preliminary ideas, for a manuscript on Christian bookstores that I am co-authoring with Anthony Hatcher.

— Compose a self-evaluation of my work for 2009.  The self-evaluation is a formal document regarding my activities for the year, and how they relate to my long-term goals and tenure packet.  It is required for all full-time faculty.  I tend to over-think my self-evaluations.  There is a fine line between being thorough and self-aggrandizing.

–Explore the practicality of producing a video about Class Act.  I enjoy producing–in fact, one of my biggest joys of the semester was producing the women’s volleyball and men’s basketball broadcasts for HPU.  But I have not taken the time to produce an original project in a while.  So I’ve been kicking around the idea of producing a twenty-minute documentary about Class Act, a show choir I was a part of in high school.  It would involve getting interviews with the directors and several students, which I don’t think would be a problem.  It would also involve getting copies of some of the performances, which again would not be an issue.  But to make the project worthwhile I would need to play excerpts of the performances, which would mean playing performances of copyrighted material.  It would not be worth producing the documentary if I could not show it anywhere, and I wouldn’t be able to give it the showings I would like without securing permission to feature the songs.  So, I will need to think about that some more.  Fortunately, I have three weeks to not make a decision.

— Write syllabi for three new classes: Introduction to Telecommunications, Sports Production I, and Mass Media in American Christianity.  The Intro to Telecom class will incorporate a lot of material from the Broadcasting History and Development class I taught at Fisher, so that syllabus is relatively close to completion.  The Sports Production I class will incorporate a lot of material–shooting live events, producing packages, producing highlight reels, working with SIDs, and creating and shooting a weekly sports talk show.  I’m not sure how I will work all of that into a fifteen-week semester, but I’ll try.  The Mass Media in American Christianity class doesn’t start until fall 2010, but I’m gathering material for it already.

— Finally, I want to lose about six pounds.  According to what I can gather from the internet, I need to weigh around 179 to have a healthy BMI.  My weight has been relatively stagnant at 185.5 pounds for the past week.  I was hoping to be consistently at 185 by the end of the semester, so I got pretty close.  So, I’ve lost about three pounds this semester by doing nothing but watching what I eat.  I figure if I exercise some during the break, maybe I can lose a few more pounds.  So, I’ll be making some dates with the exercise bike over the break.

Can I make a dent in these projects in the next three weeks, or is this list too ambitious?