Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

I was able to set up the LCD projector properly for my astronomy software demonstration. The only problem was that the display was too dark. I guess it was the projector itself that had insufficient brightness.

The demo went well. I got the reactions I expected showing them the animated simulations of the different motions of the Solar System. I’m already getting 3.25” disks to copy the software.

Maybe next time I’ll demo the software in the middle of the term and expect the students to use it, with guide questions of what may show up in the exam.

After my first two classes, the International Studies pair gave their oral defense on the NASA Mars program. Contrary to their word during the proposal, their adviser/thesis coordinator was not there. In fact, their complaint was that they had changed coordinators at least three times since they started, and that she just scanned their paper, which still had several typographical and grammatical errors on the first page alone.

I was also surprised that their draft was more than an inch thick, and they already had at least four previously printed or photocopied revisions. That’s more than 120 pages. Oh, the poor trees! And if I wrote down my corrections on my copy, they’d have to go through both our copies to get all our suggestions down.

So I just told them to find out from their department exactly when their grade was due, and we’ll set their revision deadline before that. I also told them to give me an electronic copy after they had incorporated my co-teacher/reader’s corrections. Lastly, since their file was 1.7mb large, I told them to divide the paper by chapters, so that if one file is corrupted, the other files are easy to retrieve.

No nap today.