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

The past few day’s overflow has prevented me from relaying about my second day of classes, so I’ll do that today.

In my 1030am class, I got their index cards, and then we started our discussion on the constellations. Something new I added (from the dozen or so performances I’ve done in the past; I feel like a stage actor) is that from saying that the ancient Greeks and other civilizations started mapping out the constellations, I proceeded logically (although I don’t know why I never thought of it before) to the limits that the people in the past encountered that prevented them from mapping the whole sky, which are, or course, the horizon and appearance of the Sun.

From there, I introduce the movement of the Sun among the constellations, and the subsequent creation of the Celestial Sphere. Before, it was the other way around.

I also peppered the lecture with questions like, “Who does not accept our assumption that the Earth revolves around the Sun?”

Lastly, I emphasized that the simple farmers of old wanted to determine the positions of the zodiac not for observation like we do, but to look for the most favorable time for weddings and scheduling other events.

In my first meeting with the 1250 MF class, I started with only a half-full classroom. I thought it was again an upper class section wherein 20 students who pre-enrolled afterwards decided not to take the elective.

I was wrong, it was a freshman block who decided having enough time for lunch is more important than arriving to their next class on time. And, they have no thoughts to making a good first impression on the teacher and instead sit in the back and continue the lively conversation they started over their meal.

And it was one of the chatty girls in the back who asked if the newspaper & magazine articles in astronomy might be taken from the net. I relished telling her that the bonus is for people who stumble upon material for submission because they take the effort to read (or have the penchant for it in the first place), and not for people who think a quick search online can give them easy plus points.

Because of that, I didn’t dismiss them early after the survey like I was planning to. I started on the first lecture, ending with cliffhanger that the fact that there are 12 constellations along the Ecliptic and 12 signs in the Zodiac is not a coincidence. It’s ironic that the most sensible answers to my questions also came from other enrollees in the same class.

In my 230pm class, I was surprised when already someone asked to sit in, something that hasn’t happened since two terms ago, but then not until after a few lecture sessions. It seems even the sit-in students made their own constellation calendar.

I’ll probably start with the overhead projector for the calendar next meeting, when I give the progressively complicated questions the calendar can answer.

It was weird to realize that my first lecture occurred before the weekend.