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

Yesterday being a holiday, I was in a mall where my co-teacher who is also the department’s laboratory coordinator said he saw a mini-planetarium projector for only P2,000. I asked him what the name of the shop was. I found it, after asking the guard at one of the entrances and he pointed just above us on the second floor.

It was a box just a little smaller than a briefcase, and it included a white quarter sphere projection wall that was made up of connected hexagon plates. This curved screen seemed large enough to accommodate a man while standing. This allowed it to be portable, although if I used it in my lecture room the tables and chairs have to be moved back and the students have to sit on the floor.

I texted my co-teacher back that the price was now P600 higher, but it was something that we definitely could use a lot. He replied, “Okay, so we’ll buy it.”

This seems more feasible now that last year when he first mentioned it to me, because, besides having two new Academic Service Faculty (bringing our count to nine who have held that position), one of whom is dedicatedly assigned to Astronomy as one of the five labs he has to help out in.

What I don’t understand is that it’s also assigned on Friday, with different days for different labs. Does this mean I have to orient him on Fridays, or that I’m only allowed to ask for his help in Fridays?

Either way, if it does prove to be out of the way for him to purchase it (which must have been the excuse of the other two), now I can handle that, as long as they give me the money first. Otherwise, I’ll be reminding him of it every once in a while.

In other astronomy class news, two of the Monday-Friday (hour-and-a-half class) students showed up in the department today, asking for the questions that were supposed to have been left at a photocopier last Monday. It had already been returned to me on
Tuesday, but the text was already disintegrating. So
I just printed them out a copy. Other than that, there didn’t seem to be any other students who were looking to consult.