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

Continuing the trend of only finding time to post during the early mornings, before my classes.

One thing I forgot to mention last Monday was that in my 230pm class, another student yet again asked when we would have our stargazing session. I answered, deadpan, "Not anymore, because I'm surprised this class keeps asking that even though everytime I give the same answer, which no one else seems to be listening to: after we've discussed all the constellations."

The class was quiet after that, until an uncertain voice in the back said, "So, sir, when *is* our stargazing?"

Everyone reacted, some in laughter, others in shock although I just gave the guy a squinting gaze and proceeded with the lesson.

Yesterday in Mathematical Methods I started out with three students (including a girl who was usually late). I started writing the sample problem on the board and just had them copy it, without any explanation; I mean, *they* didn't have any questions.

One of them, in fact, had asked before the class if the assignment could be submitted at 11am. I said that I was planning to discuss the solutions in class. He requested that the discussion be postponed until the lunchtime session. If this student wasn't one of my top achievers (despite being a repeater) I wouldn't have given in to his plea.

By the time the rest showed up (seven more students) I was already ready to erase everything I had written and move on to the next part.

Since most of the solutions to the problems we were taking up were actually built up on earlier mathematical concepts, instead of giving them an exercise, I had a recitation on different parts of the solutions of the sample problems.

That's what I did in the lunchtime make-up session also, although I introduced a new topic I was earlier planning to skip, because the guy who requested the extension of the assignment submission earlier still hadn't finished, when all his other classmates already had (and probably copied). The new topic was one I was already familiar with, despite deeming it unnecessary (and outdated) for science and technology students), so it was the one I decided to proceed with, rather that look for and stumble through a required topic I would have to review the same time as I taught the students.

Sometimes we have to choose between what we want to teach, what we have to teach, adn what we can teach.