A Tale of Two Days

Chuck & his new Egyptian friends at the British Museum ...

Russell Square park ...

Tuesday is a lovely, sunny day. Chuck & I decide to return to the British Museum on Russell Square to spend some time with the Egyptian artifacts. As we walk through Russell Square, we end up sitting on a bench enjoying the sunshine for awhile. The museum is fun and in addition to the Egyptian collection, we see part of the Straffordshire hoard -- a recently found Saxon hoard (spring 2009).

Then time to shop for Christmas gifts. Our way home is marred by the closure of the Northern line at St. Pancras due to a body under the train. That's the second one this week. Ugh.

Wednesday we head for CAPA early since I've got lots to do today. I've got a huge zit right by my mouth and discover a large yellow stain on my top which won't disappear with "lashings" of water! Of course - I'm skyping the WC faculty later in the day.

The printer isn't working and off-site tech support must be called. Getting this afternoon's quiz printed takes a little work, but with Elena's help ... Worked frantically for 4 hours before my first class - Math Perspectives. It was a frustrating class; students panic at the thought of calculating the area of a circle! This is middle school material! And when I try to explain, they start talking among themselves so I end up repeating myself and repeating and ... Argh.

In the 30 minutes between classes, I realize that (1) the Audacity software I downloaded last week is gone because there's a different computer in the room, (2) the ALICE software I have on my Macbook isn't viewable because I brought the wrong connector for the projector, (3) downloading ALICE to the computer that is connected to the projector will take 2-3 hours, (4) the Internet connection keeps going down, (5) none of the podcast files students have e-mailed me are working on Audacity (once I download it, again), and (6) none of the students were able to get ALICE downloaded onto their computers. Plus I have a constant stream of students who want to discuss their projects... so I have no time to think of alternatives. My entire 2-hour class is down the tube! And I can't tell you how many hours I put into getting ready for these classes! And sadly, this is not an unusual situation. Mondays are usually worse since the computer there doesn't have any sound at all and I have to plan for the technology portions to occur on Wednesdays...

In addition, Chuck pops his head in to inform me that there's another body on the tracks for the Picadilly Line -- that's 4 we've heard of since Monday. So sad.

At 4:30 pm I need to stop class (30 mins. early) to participate in a Faculty Forum at Westminster. It relies on having Skype, which in turn relies on a good, constant Internet connection... I did mention that our Internet connection was up and down. It fails at least 5 times during the Faculty Forum and I miss a question directed to me ...

Finally, we can leave CAPA. It's now 5:45 pm and completely dark; it gets dark around 3:30 these days. The tube lines are open and I even got a seat. And some chocolate for dessert. Life will improve. Now if I could only find something on TV. Friends anyone? Or Dart championships?