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

Gave my classes the Tides activity today, which is opportune because there was a distinct possibility of straining my throat if I had lectured the whole time.

In fact, during my second class, I had to type out my final instructions on my celphone and have one of the students read it aloud in front. It involved bonuses for those who could submit one or both of the graphs before the instructor left the rooroom so they could submit.

That was for my one-and-a-half-hour class. The one-hour classes, (1030am and 230pm) could not finish the graphs and answer the guide questions by the end of the period, so I made it an assignment for all of them.

That means on Wednesday I will discuss the graphs they did finish, and give them the instructions for the third graph, which will require some analysis on their part. That's what I'll do for the 1250pm class on Friday.

Since I wanted to conserve my voice, for my last two classes, I also had to print out instructions for the students to follow instead of telling them everything before the class. This I just typed out as a document file and printed out, while I still had to draw the figures and sample graphs on the board, since I had no time to make those in a a file.

Just like the Phases of the Moon exercise, there were still some questions despite the procedure, and this, I realized, is because they don't read the entire instructions first before asking.

Maybe next time I'll give deductions for people who do that. What I did announce (in the two later classes of the day) is that distribution of points for the activity will depend on who the instructor sees is and is not contributing to the groupwork. In the second class I wrote this in large print on the board, but there were still some who didn't even bother to read that. For the third class, I write in in small print, and there was only one "slacker".

I'm also supposed to substitute for a co-teacher of mine from 1140am-110pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday, when I have a class 1250pm on Mondays and Fridays. That means I have 1130-1140am to have lunch unless I eat at 10am.

I've substituted for her before, giving quizzes and just getting attendance. Since this is for the whole week though (and I found it out from an e-mail I opened after the class), I will have to lecture on Wednesday and on Friday.

And it's definitely back to a very fine grind after the holiday weekend.