Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

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

On the second to the last day of the second to the last week of classes for the first term, I continued with the review board work recitation for my Mathematical Methods One class.

This time there were more volunteers at the start, since they already had an idea that the earlier topics were simpler and easier to solve.

I already warned them the meeting before about the word problems cropping up again, but they still had not prepared enough and I had to give hints before they could solve them. I hope the same will not be true during the exam though.

I also gave them the meeting as an opportunity for them to ask any questions they may have about the previous topics that they would like clarified, again including how to get logarithms, exponents and fractions on their individual scientific calculators.

But the only confusion seemed to be whether to use positive or negative r in getting the factor (x – r) of a polynomial of degree three or higher, and if the products obtained would still be added or subtracted in synthetic division.

And thus ended all my teaching for this term, although technically I finished the day before.

On the first day of finals week I had one exam at 8am (MM1) to 10am, another at 1015am to 1215pm (Differential Equations) and supposed to be Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism lecture at 3 – 5pm.

Since my students were basically the same for the last two (except for a very minor fifteen percent of the class), the students, all Engineering sophomores, asked that the INTRELM finals be moved to the fifth day of the week’s schedule – their option as to when they are available as long as it does not conflict with the dates and times of any of my other exams. Even the secretary agreed to the adjustment they proposed, so the matter was settled.

So I made the two exams on the sixth day of the thirteenth week of classes. The photocopier wasn’t open then, neither was the one in the library, and the one at the registrar had been moved to the Executive Vice President’s office when the personnel who knew how to operate it quit. On top of that, the EVP office was also closed.

The staff from the registrar on hand that day facilitating the MBA applicants suggested that I have the EVP office opened to use the photocopier, but I declined, not wanting to be responsible in case something would be reported amiss there the next day. But I’ll continue this anecdote next time.

Session 727 locks up at this point. Class dismissed.