Maybe my students are telling me to become an economic geographer?

I'm really bonding with the way I've structured this class, and I'm glad because I was skeptical. I've never taught the Geography of US and Canada, and luckily, everything is flowing together great. First, I've been teaching widely applicable systems of spatial organization and broad overviews of different topics and how they're applicable to the entire region. Then, I'm going through the regions one by one, referring back to the systems to explain things at a closer scale.

I've never had a class quite like this one, so the fact that I came up with this on my own impresses me to no end. And, I really think it's working.

I'm also super-excited to show a video about Wal-Mart tomorrow for part of the retail discussion. It will be my first in-class video (yep, after about four years of teaching at the college level) but I think it will be valuable. It's put out by PBS and it's actually quite balanced. The geographical themes run throughout the film and they're quite evident.

I can't wait.

In other I-can't-wait news, Amy's parents are coming up for the weekend. It will be good to see family, since we have none any less than five hours away. Rumor has it that Paul and I may either go to the Kent State-Akron game, or the Football Hall of Fame while Amy and Kay shop at the Flower Factory in Canton. It seems like a lame thing to avoid, but them together in that massive store.... you're looking at literally four hours. Last time, in the much smaller Flower Factory in Indianapolis, they were in there three hours during which time they knew I was in the car.

Either way, I'm pretty happy, as long as I don't go to the Flower Factory.

And we've been declared vegetarians now for almost 10 days. I haven't been faithful because I've been eating our leftovers. Amy has essentially been vegan through that time.