Well, I finally met my Differential Equations teacher. She’s of Eastern European descent - Russian, or something along those lines. And she writes funny on the chalkboard. Otherwise, she’s okay so far. I don’t know what this portends for the future of this class, but we all pretty much walked away tonight thoroughly confused. I think she was trying to make up for the fact that she missed Monday, but it could have been done in a way other than rushing through the material. She really should have just given us her syllabus and told us to read it on our own time and to ask her questions after class instead of taking the time to read it to us. That time could have been used for instructional purposes. Just sayin’.
Overall, I’m can already tell that I’m going to have to work my butt off in this class, just to understand the material.
I was at school by 2pm today, even though my class wasn’t until 5:30. I kept thinking, and telling people, that I got there at 1, but I was wrong. It happens. Anyway, I went by the bookstore to return some workbooks and software that were listed as “required” for my computer class, but turns out aren’t. I got a little over 100 dollars back for it all, so that’s good. After that, I went straight up to the computer lab and worked on some stuff for Survey of Reading. I forgot to bring a flash drive or a diskette with me, though, so I had to save all my work to the desktop and then email it to myself to deal with at home. I did manage to get most of the class materials printed, like the syllabus, calendar, and list of assignments. All I need to do now is the same thing for Computer Use in Classrooms. I really need to take a close look at both classes’ schedules and assignments to make sure I’m getting done what needs to get done for next week. I would love to get a little ahead in one or both of them, but I don’t know if that’ll happen. It will depend on how much time I make this weekend. And we all know that I’m terrible about not finding time to do homework on the weekends. I have a sinking feeling that I won’t be able to get away with “free weekends” this semester. I just have to keep reminding myself that very little of the work is truly difficult, so buck up and just get to it!
On the way home, I drove through Baytown and stopped at the Office Depot there to look at the rolling laptop cases they carry. I’ve been looking around on-line for a new, larger capacity, backpack that rolls. The one I have is about 7 inches deep, and the deepest I’ve been able to find – in a backpack style, that is – is 9 inches deep. Two additional inches just won’t cut it. I needed something closer to 11-14 inches deep. Turns out that the only way you can get this size rolling bag, without it looking like luggage, is to delve into the laptop and catalog case territory. While catalog cases definitely come deep enough (11+ inches!), they’re typically just a big open compartment, and they often come with built-in racks for hanging files. I don’t need to use hanging files, and the racks would just get in the way of my textbooks. Besides, if all I have is one, big compartment, how am I going to keep all my little things organized? This won’t work for me, so that’s when I started looking at laptop cases. They come in a wide variety of sizes – from 3 inches deep to nearly as deep as the catalog cases. I didn’t want to buy one until I’d put my hands on it and looked it over, though. I found one at Office Depot that I think will do the trick. It’s pretty close to 10 inches deep and has five major compartments to organize things in, as well as several smaller pockets in the large compartments. The problem is that none of the five large compartments are quite big enough to suit me. Ideally, I wanted one, big, empty compartment to keep all of my textbooks, then a slightly smaller one to keep binders, folders, papers, etc., and then 3-4 yet smaller pockets for organizing pens, staplers, etc. In this case, I have an overabundance of small pockets and the large compartments are broken up one too many times. I have to keep my books in two separate areas and my large, zippered binder won’t even fit! However, there is a reason why I chose to buy it anyway. First of all, it does fit everything I need in it, plus some. There are things that I carry with me every day, but that I probably could leave at home. I have empty pockets in this thing, for cryin’ out loud! Second, it’s a Samsonite. It’ll out-last me. It’ll out-last the other laptop cases that were twice the price or more, but had less space. Third, I won’t always be a student, needing to carry multiple textbooks, plus notebooks/binders for each class. I will, eventually, be a teacher, carrying a laptop with all of it’s accoutrements, plus paperwork common to my job, as well as various and sundry office/classroom supplies that I’m not comfortable leaving in my classroom. This bag is perfect for when I start teaching. I consider it an investment. An investment that required considerably less than 100 dollars from my bank account.
OH! And fourth, the compartment that houses the laptop slip has a locking mechanism with a removeable key. This only makes the bag even more perfect.
Yes, all of my calculators are in that pocket. They’re the closest thing I can get to that laptop I’m gonna buy when I graduate.
Well, I logged on to do an entry to give my sleeping pill a chance to work, and it’s definitely working now. So, goodnight all!
