2008 June: Robertson

Hey all,

Honestly, my first reaction to reading Rob's little baby-on-the-way announcement (besides that of happiness for Rob and Tamara) was excitement that I could procrastinate writing this for another day. But I thought better of it, and so I am writing it now. June has been a busy month for us. I just know that I will leave something out. So you have my permission to fill in any juicy details that you felt that I left out. I think that my month was mostly lived in the post office. We were sending out birthday presents, father's day presents and what have you presents almost everyday during the beginning of the month. One thing that has facilitated the stepped up trips to the good P.O. is the discovery of Amazon Marketplace. We found that you can post for free until whatever you are trying to get rid of sells - unlike ebay when it is only on for a week and then you have to repay. We are taking a hard look at everything that we own and are seeing what we can get rid off. We decided since we are poor and this move will cost over $1,000, we will try and sell our unwanteds instead of DIing them. So far, it is working rather nicely. We are selling movies, games, books, and other odds and ends. So far we have made about $100 on amazon. We just need to do that 10 more times and we can get this move paid off.

Another big thing that happened - we got a Wii. We found a good deal on it and nabbed it. At the same time, we also got the Wii fit. So we have been exercising on it nightly. The thing is brutal in its honesty and its niceness about it. If you are overweight, which i was, it makes your character plump up accordingly. I watched my little character gain a foot around the waist instantly. Ouch. But, I have lost 10 pounds during June because I have finally started to exercise again. Just need to loose about 12 more pounds to reach my ideal weight. Morgan needs to gain weight to be ideal - at least according to the Wii, I on the other hand think she is already there. And I didn't just write that because she is standing over my shoulder watching me type this.

Father's day was good to me. I got breakfast in bed. Spoiled. Everything else after that was extra spoilage, but I don't want to make the rest of you feel jealous so I wont elaborate. We spent the day down in Blackfoot at my grandparent's house. It was an enjoyable day.

A few days after that, I learned that a student had been plagiarizing all of her assignments. I sent out a couple of general emails and made a class announcement about plagiarizing and what to do if you have or even thought that you have been guilty of it hoping that she would turn herself in. She never did. I called her into my office and asked her point blank if she wrote the papers she turned in. She said that she had. I then pulled out the web addresses of each and every one of her essays and asked her to explain why each of the essays that she has written were on free essay sites on-line. She played dumb and lied to me for a good half an hour as I asked her question after question. Her basic story was that two different people wrote the exact same essay word for word; she turned hers in and the other person posted it on-line. After 30 minutes of that rather painful conversation, I told her that I was going to fail her because she plagiarized her work and then lied to me for a very long time about it. She broke down, and cried that they would kick her out of school and out of the country (she's from Europe). She wanted a chance to make it right. I tried to tell her that I had given her many chances, but she wasn't listening to me. She confessed that she had paid $40 dollars for one of the essays. I asked her about the others, but she still played dumb. She begged me to change my mind for another 5-10 minutes. I couldn't; I wouldn't; I didn't. She ran out crying, and that was about the time that I lost all control that I had managed to keep. That was a miserable conversation that I never want to have again.

Morgan and I then were able to go on a trip by ourselves. My parents took the girls for a weekend and we left Rexburg. We went wherever we wanted to go. We went to see a play and drove around the mountains, went hiking, drove around some more. We went shopping, and spent the entire weekend just relaxing and getting ourselves emotionally prepared for the big push to the end of our stay in Rexburg, Idaho. It was a much needed break. I think it was the first vacation or time away from work or responsibility that I have had since...I can't say for sure. I know that it was really the first vacation that I haven't done any work at at least for the past 3 years – no wonder I am turning into such a dullard. On the way back to Rexburg, our car started having some problems. I just hope that it isn't anything serious since we will be driving the car to Minnesota in a couple of weeks.

Now we are bracing ourselves against the month of July. It will be crazy. Shudder. Good thing that we have rediscovered the joys of audio books. I have a subscription to audible.com and am getting some amazing deals from that place, and we getting the most out of netlibrary.com where you can “check-out” audio books to listen to and download to select portable devices. This month between the two of us we have listened to The Ceiling: How Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, Where God was Born – the story of the Bible and the Middle East, Lectures of Faith and Reason, Confessions of St. Augustine, Girl of the Limberlost, Anna Karenina, The Qu'ran:a biography, and Siddartha: an Indian Tale. I think that it will be audio books that pull us through this blasted move. Anyway I think that is everything on our end of the Jell-O belt. Wish you all the best and Heaven's blessings,

The Robertsons