I had a lunch meeting today with a couple people to discuss one of my upcoming projects. We are going to revive a long-dormant forensics program at the college and yours truly will be the speech coach. I was on the speech team when I was in college, and since I’m starting my masters degree in speech this fall, it seemed like a good fit. The discussion today was productive. One of the men is generously planning to fund the seed money to get our program started. He has done well for himself financially and wants to give back to the college in this way. At one point, I laid out what I felt would be obstacles to getting a forensics program off the ground, which led to some interesting ideas on how to collaborate with the local high schools. By the end of our lunch I was both energized and daunted by the possibilities this project will bring. It’s an area I’m obviously interested in, and I’m excited by the idea of starting anew from the ground up. And the “investor” is a guy who is not only generous but well-connected in our community. It will be interesting to get outside involvement in the program. Yet he made it very clear that while he will help out however I need him to, he has no personal agenda outside of wanting to provide a way to involve students in leadership roles with potential scholarship opportunities. Basically, he gave me the reins and told me to let him know what the budget needs would be. I hope someday I’m in that kind of financial position. I left lunch with a hundred ideas going through my head. And came home to a puppy crated too long and a mess to clean up and immediately wondered what else I had gotten myself into. In a month I start classes myself and now have a forensics program to build, a day job to maintain, a puppy to potty train, a half-painted house to finish…Good thing I don’t have time to have people to my house a lot. I have the feeling the dust is going to build up. I’ve been able to talk myself out of panic mode lately (most of the time), which is a good thing. I know things will come together. They always do. The puppy will grow up. I’ll have one daughter back at home soon to help out. And for that I’m thankful.