We started classes last week and it has been extremely busy; the first couple of weeks always are. I made a mistake right after I got here. Nice guy that I am, when Liaoning Normal University asked me if I would help them out by teaching a history class for them, I said I would, but because I already had five courses scheduled, I wanted a smaller class of no more than 25 to 30 students. Well, I walked into that class for the first time last week and there are over 75 students in there, which means I have over 230 students this semester in six classes. The normal load for a community college is five classes, and frankly, that's too many. The college is paying me a little extra for the sixth class, but not enough to justify 75 extra students. They won't do that to me next term.
Otherwise, things are well. We actually have a holiday already coming up next week; some kind of national holiday, I never have found out what it is. I'll get caught up on some work, some reading, some sleeping, and some writing, and not necessarily in that order.
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I haven't been able to follow current events too closely for the past couple of weeks, except to determine that Herman Cain and Rick Santorum appear to be the purest conservatives in the Republican field. Cain, surprisingly, won a straw poll in Florida this past weekend. I don't think he's got much chance of winning the nomination, but the Tea Party likes him and may swing behind him. The good money for the nomination is on Romney, and while he would certainly be light years better than Obama, he isn't the best of the Republican field. Unfortunately for Rick Perry, he isn't a silver-tongued orator, and so the media is starting to portray him as a stupid oaf, and the other candidates have jumped on his case for a couple of boners he pulled as governor of Texas. Ron Paul would normally be my favorite candidate, but I don't like his "get out of Iraq and Afghanistan immediately" position. Goals need to be set in both countries (something that frankly wasn't, and hasn't been, done) and once those goals are accomplished, then you get out. Otherwise, it looks like the country is just turning tail and running before it finishes the job, and that's just an open invitation for thugs around the world to believe America will wimp out again in the future. Do what needs to be done in Iraq and Afghanistan, and get out. And, at the same time, bring the troops home from Korea, Japan, Europe, and every place else in the world they are camped. And put them on the border with Mexico.
Anyway, nobody knows yet who is going to get the Republican nomination, but the Republican "establishment" (i.e., the John McCain losers) want Romney. Obama has been such a disaster the Republican might win by default.