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

Second day of the second week of summer classes: yesterday our vice-chairman and soon to be vice dean told me that while he was in the desk for the students’ summer class adjustments, my solo thesis student who’s a major (and not taking Computer Studies or International Studies) enrolled in the third and final thesis subject for the summer.

That means he has until the end of the first term of the new school year to defend his thesis, although I’m assuming he’s planning to do that by the second week of May. At least that’s what I gathered when he called up last course card day and told me about his planned enrollment.

So what does he have to do? He has to show me that his astronomy software works. I have to be satisfied with the way it’s working. He has to show me his paper. I have to be satisfied with that. He has to contact the panelists, two of whom do not have any load this summer. The third is the department chairman, which just shows how good his work has to be to pass muster.

What has he been doing? First of all, he has been on Leave of Absence for the past two terms. In fact, two terms ago, he was withholding enrollment until he could determine if he was already capable of defending. But he did not find out when the cut-off for enrollment was, (which had already passed) and he was already deemed AWOL until he sorted that out. At least at the start of last term he called up to tell me he wasn’t enrolling then.

What was he doing before that? He was attempting to consult by phone, which I put a stop to immediately. He was always asking about the theoretical hurdles of his thesis, doing the program from scratch, when his panelists and I have been telling him that if he just converted the software from the old computer language first and worried about the equations later, he would be finished with his work faster.

It doesn’t help that he’s only now learning the new programming language, despite having had 15 units of study with that before (thesis is the only subject he has left). In fact, he has come back to taking a thesis under astronomy after having left and gotten fielded under another professor, who has nothing but frustrating anecdotes about him. In fact, his name specifically came up in a negative context during the discussion of thesis guidelines in our workshop.

Last time I saw his software, it didn’t even perform half of what the panelists wanted. The dates had to be entered in Julian years instead of using the Gregorian calendar. The interface wasn’t user-friendly, and the circular display took up a fourth of the screen, with large depictions of the planets seemingly plotted randomly around it instead of in any discernable pattern.

Even if I don’t have any other load this summer, it’s no fun with this to look forward to.