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

When I got to school this morning, I had to type up and print the exercise for my programming class first before I went to the Observatory for the first of my two astronomy classes’ continued film showing. I finished that with twenty minutes to spare, and got to the top floor of the Engineering building, was able to turn on the air conditioners and set up the video system before the students arrived.

For both of my two one-hour classes today, I clarified on some parts of the movie before we continued watching.

I answered the questions I asked them last time, starting with the coordinates Ellie shouted when she first heard the signal. Then I explained how they verified that the signal was authentic. From there I talked about SETI, how the regular astronomers marginalize the group, Drumlin’s seeming personal attacks on Ellie, and the hints about Ellie’s beliefs.

I also clarified for them that we were in the school Observatory, and some of the students asked if it was my “office” and if I spent all my off hours there, alone and so isolated from everyone else, even though there’s a phone, a computer and a video player. Not all the time, I answered.

The programming class has a relatively easy time with the exercise about multi-branch programming, although some students have a problem with an erroneous format that I gave them last Monday. Next week I’ll show them how to use the visual basic editor’s help function to find out the format and see some examples of how some of the statements are used.

At 1230pm we have our first departmental meeting of the new school year. The chairman updates us on the general education curriculum that the administrators are planning to start next year, although even the chairman says that if we’re not ready by then the implementation date can always be moved.

He said that students will be asked to choose between eight different tracks of science requirement courses, (I loved it when they started calling these eight-tracks) each having two units each of biology, chemistry and physics. Those two units are further subdivided into one unit lab and one unit lecture.
The lecture meeting will always be scheduled after the lab meeting, to consolidate what the students have learned in the lab.

The students will have to take up all three subjects in the track they choose to have fulfilled the requirement. When one of my co-faculty asked what will happen to the real popular courses, the chairman said that there are, of course, a limited number of sections offered for each track.

I’m also suspecting that the most popular course for biology will be paired with an average course in physics and the least popular course in chemistry, although it never came up. On a possibly contrary note, the chairman also said that the three courses would be tackle the same aspect of science in depth instead of in breadth.

The example that the chairman gives is having a course called “The Physics of the Digestive System”. I could think of one laboratory session and one lecture session to tackle that, but not fourteen weeks. Might not have been a good example.

Hmm, this is getting extensive. I’ll continue tomorrow.