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

FYI, as of now there are 16 students in my Trig class (3 more than last Thursday), and 18 and 19 in my two mechanics lecture classes. The last two do not add up with the 31 students total that showed up in the first meetings of the lab classes. I told David about this and for now we are handing out Leader and Secretary assignments for each meeting a week before, until the class list for each section is finalized.

Two of David’s orders of equipment for the electronics lab arrived last Friday, when he was off-campus. Before lunch the additional rechargeable batteries and the chargers for the Lego Mindstorm robots. It was fortunate that I knew it was just more of the same types of equipment that was already in the lab, otherwise I wouldn’t have known if the specifications were correct, and would probably have had to contact David on his celphone.

In the afternoon it was the electronic components (LEDs, capacitors, resistors and potentiometers) as well as the analog VOMs and the soldering irons. Some of the capacitors were not the values he requested, but nothing outside of the range of acceptable parameters. Other than that the order was in – well – order.

Except, that is, for some other values of capacitors and potentiometers that weren’t there. The guy from the school bookstore (who, of course, knows all about supplies arriving and being received) pointed them out to me since the amount the check was already made out to wasn’t the same as in the billing statement the delivery guy showed.

How was I supposed to know? All I pored over was the invoice the deliveryman brought and made sure everything listed there was present and accounted for. That piece of paper didn’t say what items from the original order weren’t included.

Luckily the bookstore guy HAD that record, and just told me that the supplier will now reimburse them the overpayment on the check for the items not sent. Bookstore guy just had me sign his record where he’d already put check marks on what we sent over and so it indicated what wasn’t brought.

Lastly on being stay-in-the-office guy while things arrive, the official robot soccer balls arrived. They’re clear and about the size of an apple. There was a plug attached to the side of each one, which when detached, turns on a red LED inside.

“It’s going to blow!” Fr. Ben said when he saw that. The plug connects to a rechargeable battery (also inside), which I guess powers the transmitter and the LED.

I wonder when we’ll get to use it though, as the students aren’t expected to come up with the design and the programming of their soccer robots until March.

As for the talent show, it seems I’ve been relegated, as one of the four people the dean will conduct hitting this big xylophone-like bamboo instrument. Sounds like a nightmare in coordination, otherwise, without much practice it will look like a pre-school production, with the dean conducting us when to bang our “gongs” in cue. Maybe it’s not too late for me to pick out a minus one to sing to.

I could probably spend whole other posts about the final status of my two thesis advisees, as well as last Saturday’s veggie moment and today’s first Trig lecture that just finished.