Monday, January 26

back...

First class in about 2 hours. I feel like crap. Headache, sore throat, stuffy, sniffly... all of the Nyquil Dwarves. Hoping that a combination of decongestants, tea, and adrenaline can get me through.

The thing that I knew would happen has happened already. I'm teaching a big NEW class this semester and a smaller taught-many-times-before class. The new one is at 2:00 PM and the older class is at 10:00 AM. The new class obviously involves more preparation and will receive most of my attention. This means that every Monday and Wednesday at around 8:00 in the morning, I will be in the middle of working on a Keynote for my afternoon class, and I will have the thought - "FUCK! I haven't thought about what I'm doing in my 10:00 class today!!"

To try to head this off, I'm using the new outlining tools in Pages to assemble a daily outline for the morning quantum mechanics course. Since I've done this class before, I'm pretty clear on the topic for each day. If I look about 2 weeks ahead and write a detailed outline for each day, I should be able to walk into class and teach it off the top of my head without experiencing that panic-moment. I already have the first two classes done, and the next two roughly sketched. I feel very good about it. Imagine how useful these outlines will be next time I teach the course! Imagine NOT re-thinking what to do in class every year. What a concept...

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