Fall is here and my second semester at Queens College has officially begun. My first impressions of the classes are mixed. They all seem interested in the material thus far, which is nice to see. Also, I was better at my opening day speech this semester because I was able to scare away about 5 students from my 2 classes. Nevertheless, I still have nearly a full course load since I approved 4 over-tallies (2 extra students per class).
My Monday/Wednesday class is similar to my 2 classes from last semester. They seem to take good notes and manage to keep up with a quicker pace (which I prefer since the class doesn't drag). The Tuesday/Thursday class asks lots of questions (not necessarily a bad thing when it happens occasionally). I need to offer a thorough explanation to repeat the answer in an alternate way so that they can understand the material better. The side effect of this is that I can see that I'm losing the attention of the students who 'get it' and then feel the class is dragging along.
I don't mind the questions since they're valid questions but every time we meet I get asked a lot of questions which then takes time from other things we need to go over. On a personal note, another consequence of this is that they keep me in the classroom until 9:20pm (the scheduled end time of the class)!! This is a bad for me but more so for them because the last hour of the class time needs to be dedicated to doing lab work (using SPSS, a program we have for statistical analysis). I have the Sociology department's computer lab reserved for my classes. What I tend to do is dismiss my classes after the lecture is completed and then hang around for the students who want to work in the department's computer lab. The more time we take in class, the less lab time they have (or the later they stay in school since this keeps them from having an early night).
We'll see how things shake out. First exam is tonight and tomorrow. =)
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Disclaimer: Between classes (and grading of the first exam this week) along with finding my own place (among other things), I may end up having less time to dedicate to RaUM in the upcoming week or so. I'll do my best to write a short entry before another full week passes.
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I'd like to offer birthday shout-outs to the Virgos in my life. My fellow earth signs are people I have gotten along with very well for most of my life. Had some fun with some Virgos this past weekend. For the record, I am STILL upset that my sister, also a Virgo, didn't tell me if she had anything going on for her b-day. I may have to tell her to her face since it's not as if she reads my blog anyway. I actually have no idea if she did anything or not. Maybe I should call her...
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I feel sad for my best friend Jorge and his wife who had to give up their 3 kitties after their 21-month old daughter started having very bad allergic reactions to them. I know losing a pet is always hard whether it's because they die, are lost (and never found again) or given away for sudden (yet valid) reasons. However, given his daughter's reaction to them, the choice was clear. I know that given enough time, they'll learn to live without them. I just hope that day comes sooner than later.
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I'm working on a RaUM entry (about Spanglish and my feelings about it) and hope to have it posted some time this weekend. I also hope it won't take me more than a week to finish it up.
Until next time, faithful reader......
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