In which trek waits

We here at chez trek capped off an amazingly hectic week with a frenetic weekend. The upcoming week and weekend combination doesn't look to be any less hectic, but I really needed to carve out enough time to catch up on life so here it goes.

Let me tell you about the weekend first - this will explain why I didn't have time to update everyone on the first meeting my my new class on Thursday...

Friday night was supposed to be a time to kick back with some friends and relax. We did visit and we did hang out and chat and munch and such but we also ended up doing a round of teen-delivery helping along the way so it ended up being a very late night by the time we got Neatnik home and everyone showered and snoozing.

Saturday was the day of Neatnik's school's big gift auction fundraiser. The dads get up in the middle of the night to set up the ballroom with all the gift baskets. A few boxes of joe help them to avoid dropping any televisions or delicate pieces of furniture. Couple of hours later and they are all ready to return to the land of nod but they cannot: the moms are all ready to depart for the actual event so the dads are all in charge of the offspring for the rest of the daylight hours.

There was one item that Neatnik really wanted and only one item that I was really interested in winning. These were an American Girl doll and a Nook, respectively. I put my tickets in the appropriately labeled buckets and waited to win.

I'm still waiting.

Without sounding like I'm whining, my report on the day is not a pretty one: our food was all served last and cold; my chicken was a strip of dried out shoe leather and the woman to my left had uncooked bird on her plate; the dessert was leaning towards stale by the time it reached our table (last, again) and our platter of fancy cookies was stolen by another table; and I didn't win a thing. Not even the pretty floral centerpiece.

The Brownie troop had tickets for a musical. Curtain was 8 o'clock. I dutifully brought Neatnik. We had to park about three blocks away from the theater in an iffy neighborhood, but we walked down the middle of the street, trying to step in the weak pools of light cast by the street lamps.

Neatnik enjoyed the production but, in the interest of finding our way home in one piece each, we had to leave before final curtain. I think I dislocated my jaw on a couple of those yawns and Neatnik did not protest her own little tired state at all.

We overslept the earliest masses this morning, but that's okay because we were up early enough to read and relax a little while before zipping over to the church for the 11 o'clock mass. An hour later, we walked to the parking lot where I noticed that the minivan was suffering a decided list to the left. We had a flat.

I called roadside assistance. I had one flat tire previously with this vehicle and I knew full well that I could not loosen the lug nuts. Number Guy decided to try his luck. Good thing we have the roadside rider on our insurance policy: Number Guy actually bent the freaking lug wrench and the lug nut did not turn a millimeter.

When he arrived, the tow truck guy whipped out a much more muscular and manly lug wrench and attacked the wheel. This is a fellow who fixes flats every single day and I thought he popped a hernia. Seriously, this guy doubled over after yanking on the wrench that wouldn't budge. Eventually, between him and Number Guy, they got the nuts off and the flat swapped out in favor of the spare.

I slipped the guy ten bucks and an apology then we three piled back into the van to go to the Tire Fixy Place. We were told the repair would take half an hour. An hour later, we were still waiting...

We finally returned home at about ten after two. Just enough time to feed Neatnik a snack and race up the highway for a high school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was really well done, everyone had a good time, we supported a local school, and for ten bucks, you couldn't beat the price. We knew a few kids in the cast and crew and it was great to see what a fine performance they could provide. After shuttling one of said teenagers home, we swung by the grocery store for some victuals and then came home for the night.

I'd say that I'd like to have a do-over but with the exception of today's musical entertainment, I really don't think I would be interested in repeating any of the events of this weekend.

Anyway, all of that stress and struggle and strife is why I didn't report on Thursday's class meeting sooner...

# # #

After many looooong hours of preparation, I finally met my students this past Thursday evening. Well, to be precise, I met some of my new students. There are seventeen on the official class roster and a whopping seven of them were on time. All in all, I met almost two-thirds of my newly adopted adolescents. I was the only estrogen-producing individual in the room. An odd feeling, that.

Ahem.

The previous instructor had scheduled an exam but then, on his last night with them, told them that he didn't know if the new instructor was going to give them a test. Way to ensure that they won't crack open a book, dude! Yes, he really did say that: I saw the post on the class web site.

I really didn't know how much was covered. The former professor advised me that he'd covered arrays and that the students should be ready for a test on them but seeing as how he gave them such a convenient study excuse... So, no exam on Thursday evening; instead, I wrote up a take home test.

Yep, a take home test, designed specifically to evaluate (1) how much they know and (2) how willing they are to do a little research. The questions are pretty straight-forward and, honestly, pretty easy. I came up with five short answer questions for four points each and four programming code questions worth twenty points apiece. I even tacked on a bonus question on the last page.

I was hoping that I could simply do a quick review of array declarations and array processing and then move on to classes and object oriented programming but, alas, it was not to be. No idea how the old instructor ran class nor how quickly he moved through the material but when I mentioned a simple swap routing and traversing an array, all I got was nearly a dozen glassy-eyed blank stares. Back to the drawing board, as it were. I retaught arrays and looping, making sure to cover all of the topics which I had included on the take home examination.

Sure is a good thing that the department chair has given me a free rein for the remainder of my time with my new kids. I've pretty much decided to scrap everything which has come before now and to give every student a clean slate and a chance to improve their class standing.

Believe me, they need all the help they can get, especially the front row student who wondered if he could turn in all of the late programming assignments at the end of the semester.

Then there was the student from the back row who asked if he could surf the web during class...