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

Well, I missed the shuttle again this morning by a few minutes. And by "missed" I mean I arrived in school early just as it was leaving the campus. Another 70+% fare savings down the drain. To think that I was already weighing the option of getting down and waiting at the gas station (at 635am) just as the tricycle I rode in passed it.

Was the additional fare worth the twenty to thirty minutes I had in the faculty room before my class started. Maybe now it is, but what about in the long run?

It was also the second time my co-teacher asked me about riding the 7am shuttle. Next time I will wait for the shuttle. Hopefully the convenience store in the gas station would have finished their renovation by then.

Yesterday at 4pm Michelle and I decided to push through with the stargazing session because the sky was clear and incredibly blue. At 5pm, when we had finished having our snack, the sky was completely covered with grey clouds again.

We still pushed through with the stargazing though, because I had already been "paid" with food. I forgot to print out a starmap though before we left the department, so on reaching the observatory I had to churn out several copies, although limited to one or so per group (it was a laboratory class). In fact, it was composed of Biology majors, a couple of whom I had already taught in computer programming.

We had to start at 6pm though, instead of at 5pm as i had recommended, because Michelle did not know the celphone numbers of her students and she had already told them the usual starting time.

By the time I had finished the lecture and we went to the roofdeck, Mars (and some other stars visible in the break in the clouds), plus some stars in the clear Eastern and Southern horizon.

Everyone was able to see Mars through the telescope, and because some people were unimpressed by the unblinking red-orange dot, I centered on Achernar from the constellation Eridanus to allow them a comparison with a twinkling multi-colored point.

By the time I left the observatory at 8pm though, the sky was clear again as I traveled between buildings of the campus. Talk about the fickle fortunes of forecasting the weather.

This morning I announced a quiz for Thursday to my Mathematical Methods class, and we had a review of the types of problems in the coverage of the quiz, instead of starting a new topic. That will have to wait for Thursday afternoon then, or next Tuesday morning (if I decide to discuss the answers to the quiz then).

The review lasted until the afternoon 45-minute session, just to be comprehensive. I have the feeling the students are accepting the situation that they don't understand some of the procedures though, instead of asking for clarifications. This leads me to suspect that there may be some other reason they're requesting that I teach the the post-requisite subject, and not because they find it easier to understand when I'm handling the subject.

But then, when have all but the most dedicated students ever been known to care about anything other than their overall convenience?