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

Yesterday I had to give seatworks in my mechanics classes because the pulled muscle in my writing arm would shoot pain right in the INSIDE of my elbow at sudden movements.

This is when it doesn't even hurt when I pick up something heavy. But I raise my hand over my head (as I usually do writing on the board), reach horizontally to accept a student's paper or sift through the things in my bag and it hurts.

My best guess is that I injured my arm supporting the very healthy young daughter of a friend when I met with them last Sunday. I don't even remember trying to carry her.

And it could have been aggravated by the two big bags I brought from the metropolis to my parents' home in the province.

So I passed up lecturing for the first day of the week. It might be a point in favor of looking or using an alternative to board teaching, although I also don't want to put too much reliance on technological means of teaching (film showings, transparencies, presentation software, hands-on computer sessions) unless there's dedicated available equipment for each classroom that doesn't have to be reserved half-a-term in advance.

That means it's not really the use of technology in lecturing that I'm against, just the financially superior position the school has to be in to allow us to utilize the equipment at all times to the utmost of my convenience.

Incidentally the seatwork also serves as their practice for the upcoming exam, which I still haven't scheduled, unlike the one in Trig, which I have announced to be on Monday next week. Tomorrow, after all, is the start of the seventh week of classes, which means we're halfway through the term.

Yesterday I also received another message from the Computer Science students asking for another meeting because they need to consult about ONE constellation whose portrait they somehow couldn't fit with the starmapping software they have decided to use as their primary reference.

After almost two terms of no consultation (up to the point that their initial paper draft being rejected earned them a failing grade in the first of three research subjects they have to enroll in - something that may not have happened if they had shown me the document) asking for weekly appointments about what I believe to be "every little thing" is starting to feel needy and desperate, especially when there are other means of communicating questions and advice, like e-mail.

Yesterday the top dean's lister also approached me asking for their lab manual. I told her David, who is the one checking their submissions, wasn't in. She needed their data so that she could make her individual report. I reminded her that the student's copy of the manual was where they should have written their results before submitting the teacher's copy.

Either they threw their first lists or she doesn't know who among her groupmates has it. I just told her she now knows better for next time, but for now she'll have to endure rushing her report for submission tomorrow.