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

Last day that the campus will be open for this year. January 2 will be the next time.

Things I have to do today today: wait to see if my thesis advisee shows up with his program. If he does, then I'll ask all of his panelists if it's okay for him to go to their respective houses to drop it off, reminding them that the deadline for changing his grade is on January 5.

I guess I also have to remind him of the rest of the requirements for his grade, such as the CD, which would contain the file document of his paper, another document that can be made into a poster, and the source code.

I know he's probably eager to get the whole thing over with, and consequently start to forget what else he needs to accomplish.

Speaking of change of grades, after my student in Astronomy processed the papers for his special exam THEN took the exam yesterday, I told him that he could get his course card from my pigeonbox in the afternoon.

Getting back from lunch, I was going to take his course card from my pigeon box to erase the 1.5 I gave him before taking the finals (yes, he was that good, which is why I decided to give his the chance to boost his grade) when I realized that it wasn't there.

He probably already took it, and thinks that his grade WITH the finals is one-point-five. Boy, will he have a surprise when he gets his grades in the mail in a few weeks.

3:03pm Well, my thesis advisee just showed up. He insisted on showing me his program. Might as well, I said, so I can tell whether it's fit to show his panelists or not.

Most of the things they requested is there, except for the dark and light contrast of letters and background requested by Ricky, the progress bar for long computations, the labels of the zodiac constellation calendar borders, and the locations where a certain eclipse is visible.

It was bad enough he earlier requested another computer from the one I told him to use, saying it had a virus that screwed up his disk. I asked the academic service faculty to check, and the PC was clean. Maybe it detected a virus in the student's disk.

More excuses: he was talking about a certain command in Visual Basic giving him trouble which was why certain subroutines hitched the program.

He also gave an obviously rehearsed line (with regards to the locations of the eclipses) that it is "impossible - " (not difficult, mind) "- to accomplish in the time frame given."

Of course he wants to march by January. But at the expense of whining? I don't think so. And when I asked him why he was telling me that when the decision to accept his reasoning was up to his panel, he still wouldn't quiet down.

Was he thinking I'd plead his case to the panel? No way. Anyway, I'll be giving his panel his contact numbers so they'll know how to get in touch with him to present his work to them during the holidays.

And with that, I'm off until the start of the third trimester.