Sunday, January 06, 2008

New Semester

I'm a kid - at least when it comes to some things.

Although I took a week off right after the fall semester (we went to Las Vegas) I have been working basically every day over the Christmas holidays.

Yet, I am excited tonight. Tomorrow the new semester starts.

I have been like this every since I can remember - the night before school starts is always filled with excitement, anticipation and the sense that things will be great this semester.

I recently read an interesting article that critiqued advertisements used by credit card companies. The essence of the article was that the ads encouraged people to spend now and pay later. The authors contended that these kinds of ads catered to people's notions that things will always get better. People are more likely to believe that they will 'accidentally' come upon a large amount of money to pay the debt than they are likely to believe that some kind of disaster will befall them which will get in the way of paying the debt.

As a colleague of mine frequently says - we all live in hope.

But my hopes have frequently been fulfilled. I have been at the University of Regina since the summer of 1978 so I have experienced well over 50 semester beginnings. I can honestly say that the vast majority of those semesters have at least met my hopes and often exceeded anything I imagined.

It continues to be a great job!

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