Less than 100 Days

I've been away from home 100 days now, so I figure I have less than 100 days to go. We have made it to the half way point. Not much new happening here, so it's getting harder to come up with blog topics.

I have been teaching a college math class for the last 5 weeks. It's an 8 week course so I'm getting close to reaching that milestone. The Dept. of Defense has contracted with the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) to provide college courses and degrees for the military members over seas, including in the two combat zones. As you can imagine it is a challenge for the college to find instructors willing to come to Afghanistan to teach a couple college courses.

So, the college recruits military members to teach the courses. I saw a flyer posted somewhere on base and decided to check it out. It looked like a good opportunity so I applied and for some reason they accepted my application and have approved me to teach college math. It's a basic math course, and we meet 3 times a week for 2 hours in the evening, and 2 - 1 hour help sessions. So, you can see I pretty much gave up any free time I had. But, it sure has helped the last 5 weeks go by quickly and it's a paid position.

I've got 13 students, started with 18, the five dropped for various reasons, non of which were because of the instructor. It's a challenge for the students, some of them are working 12 hour shifts in their full body armor and then trying to stay awake in class and stay up with the homework. Yeah, I know, a good instructor would make the class fun and interesting and there would be no trouble staying awake. But, it's math and the instructor is me. Others have work conflicts that make it difficult to even make it to every class. I've enjoyed it so far and will be teaching the same course in the next session, if there are enough students wanting to take the course.

This is probably one of the few, if not the only college that allows loaded weapons in the classroom, even the teacher is carrying. Below is a picture of the classroom, outside and inside, which is also the conference/meeting room for our office. No pictures of the class, yet, or the instructor.