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

Last Friday I also had to decide about the textbook for my mechanics class. I was requesting for another book at the start of the term but the students said it wasn’t available in the bookstores that they checked. And even though Ma’am Lissa already suggested not asking the campus bookstore to carry the book because of the ongoing shift to an outside concessionaire, the students said they were willing to buy it through the bookstore.

A scramble to look for the local distributor of the book uncovered a company with similar book from the first two of the three authors, but with a different third author. They called up on Wednesday and said they would sent over a sample copy on Thursday.

It turned out to be the same book that one of my students, Justin, already bought, and which I had to tell him before is not the right book.

On Thursday the supplier also told me if I gave them the go-signal on Friday, they would send over 30 copies of the book to the campus on Monday. So I gave in to the pressure of not finding the original book I already used in teaching, for the one that is readily available. Justin, therefore, doesn’t have to buy a second textbook.

Last Monday I told my class of the change in the textbook. Unfortunately, that was also the day the bookstore chose to check their inventory, so they were closed. Therefore I couldn’t tell the students how much the textbook was selling for.

Also last Monday, hours before my first Mechanics class at 1120am, there were already a lot of students asking if we had a quiz, despite the fact that I did not announce any last meeting. I guess they got used to their other subjects like Human Behavior and English wherein they don’t know coming into the class if there was a quiz unless they asked.

I was getting snappish as, the closer the class time got, more students (who were getting antsy) asked me if we had a quiz. So in class I told them about the new policy, that if I did not announce that there would be a quiz for the next meeting and anyone asked me if there would be a quiz, the answer will always be yes. And I would tell the class after the quiz who the student was whose asking instigated the quiz. Hopefully that would put a stop to the questions.

Also, even though I didn’t get the same blank reactions that I did from last Thursday’s lecture, the flow was still better during my 1pm class than in my first class. The wonders a “rehearsal” will do.

Returning to the inventory I was doing last Tuesday, I asked the registrar’s office for a copy of the Commission on Higher Education requirements, so that if there are any missing materials, we could order them immediately, as well as in the future when more of the consumables run out.

Ma’am Karen of the registrar told me that she didn’t have a soft copy of the list, because the printout was all that was left by the person who previously held her position. I told her that we were in the same boat, expecting some paperwork to have been taken care of before the office was turned over, and finding out that a few of those have to be done from scratch, with the added burden of dealing with the physical facts, which are not from square one, and yet, somehow their history has to be traced and documented.