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

Before I resume with where I left off yesterday there is something about last Tuesday that I neglected to discuss which I consider to be a major accomplishment.

I have finished the last of the exercises in the book for the class of Graphics Two. The last one I made was number thirty six, which means that - adding this to the fifty I came up with for Graphics One last term - makes it a total of eighty six exercises for both subjects.

There was actually one more chapter in the book that my co-teacher (the one whose name appears on the grading sheet for the subject) concurred that we could skip. This is the one about printing.

There were also a handful of design problems left at the end of the book, more than could be given for two sets of final exams for two sections. That means that I could make some of them into additional exercises (just like I did last year) and probably reach up to ninety in all.

If we divide these equally among the two subjects, that would mean assigning the students forty three to forty five exercises (excluding the exams) for the whole term.

Given that there are thirteen weeks to the trimester (again not including finals week) that means my co-teacher's estimation that the students should finish three to four exercises per three hour weekly session is on the dot, the average number of designs that the students submit per class anyway.

Even though for now the students are given all the exercises and told to finish as many as they can per meeting, for next year we plan to just dole out the required exercises at the start of each class, so that even the fast ones will still be forced to show up and complete their exercises in an hour or less, instead of passing all the designs as fast as possible then not attending again until the midterm or the final exam, when as far as their parents are concerned they are attending class.

Besides, when I tried that alternate tactic in September of last year, the students were only able to finish a maximum of twenty eight exercises for the whole term, and not even half of them were able to reach that. That averages to a very bad rate of two exercises per week, even considering that we were meeting for one and a half hours every Tuesday and Thursday, and there was at least one session where I had to show them how to model in spreadsheet software instead because we were all waiting for the license to be sent by e-mail.

This also means that in the succeeding years when we are assigned to teach the subject, the materials will already be prepared and handed out, giving us more time to deal with other subjects - some of which we may be teaching for the first time (but more on that in a future post, maybe).

What makes this achievement fortuitous is that yesterday afternoon, the representative of the software we are using for these subjects called me up in the office and told me that the server that the school paid for even before I started teaching the subject last year can finally be delivered.

In fact, the guy insisted on bringing it to the school today, because I think the pressure is on him to finally send it over so long after the agreement to use it was reached.

They were also lucky that one of the Information Technology heads will be in school today until 5pm, when they have already scheduled that they will be arriving in the afternoon. Otherwise they would have had to postpone the trip for a weekday.

They will just have to set another visit when they hardware and software could be installed. At least a major hurdle towards more convenient use of the software will be over.

That means that this December (since the handover occurs at the cusp of the months) will probably be the last time that we will have to be sent the new monthly license to use the software by e-mail, without which the students had to save their works every once in a while during the fifteen minute no-license try out the software then allows.

The liaison also said that someone they call their principal will have to go to our facilities again (even though I remember him going sometime last term) not only because our contact in their company has been replaced, but also since our IT head they talked to back then has also resigned.

So, just like we do with the suppliers who are looking for the previous director, we will have to tell these guys that any verbal agreement for which we could not find a record among the papers of the old chief (except for those that have already passed his office and have copies either in the EVP's files or with the purchasing office) will have to be considered null and void, and we will have to enter negotiations anew.

On a personal level, I would also wish for this software to be available before IT co-director David goes on leave at the end of this term.

And at's all on that topic, I think. I will be returning on Tuesday, after the holiday. The class is dismissed for the week.