Bakersfield Motel

The motel I'm staying in at Bakersfield is dirt cheap. It only costs $31/night and that includes cable TV, internet, microwave, refrigerator, and free breakfast. Too good to be true? Well, there are some downsides. The room has a serious fly infestation and these buggers are fast. I can hardly kill them, and certainly not faster than they replenish themselves. I am not sure where they are coming from, since I keep the door closed, but may from the bathroom vent or AC unit. The AC works--that is nice, but the room stinks to high heaven so I stuck a air freshener on it to mask the odor. The fridge and microwave work fine, but the free breakfast consists of day old donuts that are a bit stiff and a nasty tang orange juice that I can't stomach. There is a waffle iron, so that works out fine, but waffles get old after a few days. I really can't wait until we close on the house and I can move out of this motel and into the new home.

I've had meetings at the college all this past week. The folks there seem nice. I'm sure things will work out well. The focus on student learning is a little more intense than I am accustomed. When teaching at the university level I heard, more than once, "get your research done and try to help the students if you have time" or "cut into the teaching prep to finish your research." That is not how things work here. The college reminds me much more of when I taught eight grade. It is all about student learning, which is just fine with me. Still, I do plan to do some research. It looks like Fridays are mostly free, so I'll do my scholarly writing then. In the meantime, I must convince those who think (and one person already asserted this opinion directly to me) that folks with a PhD cannot relate or teach junior college kids. The fact is, I think, that folks with a PhD know their stuff so much better that we can better reach the students. I guess we'll find out soon enough.