Sorry for the pain. Much to the chagrin of all involved, I can never resist a pun. I spent most of my weekend at a Sportsman’s show. Not necessarily by choice, mind you. Rather I was helping Drea with an emergency involving the non-profit she volunteers at. Anyway, this display was directly opposite where we were presenting.
Countless deer heads with dead eyes now haunt my dreams.
Ok, after seeing this on Julia‘s Blog I had to quickly take this test. Well, I’m more of a nerd thank I thought (I sorta considered myself Geeky up until this point). The other jaw dropper I just discovered is that Julian Bleecker, author of the Blogject Manifesto, just posted here that he’s looking forward to reading my response. Which means that I have to finish writing it.
(And I probably shouldn’t have used the phrase “U-Chicago Style Beat Down.” Julian, if you’re reading this, I’m looking forward to a discussion on this subject (and I hope you don’t take my tounge-firmly-planted-in-cheek-blog-chest-pounding to seriously).)
Here’s the nerd thing…
| Modern, Cool Nerd 82 % Nerd, 60% Geek, 26% Dork |
| For The Record:A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd. Nerds didn’t use to be cool, but in the 90’s that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn’t quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and “geek is chic.” The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)! |
The last 24 hours has run the gamut. I had the Lab Class from hell yesterday. The students were great, but the teacher didn’t test the lab on the teaching computer. The sad discovery was that MS Excel on the PC functions differently than it does on the Mac. A painful time followed as, jarred, I stumbled through the rest of the lesson. All-in-all, everything is fine. But, I did add an important “scar” to my back and learned a lesson that I won’t soon forget.
Today’s Principles of Printing course ran much more smoothly (excepting the fact that I was up until 1.00am this morning working on the lecture). I gave my first quiz, and, considering the fact that most were done in under 10 minutes, I’m optimistic about the results.
So, I’ve made it through the first week. I’m now much more prepared for what is to follow.
Today, from 4.00pm to ~5.15pm, in room 1400, in building 7a, I taught my first class. I won’t discuss the specifics of any class, especially since it is most likely an issue of when, not if, my students find this blog.
However, I will say that I wasn’t ready. It went fine. I didn’t run out of material. We covered everything I wanted to cover. Still, I wasn’t ready. And I knew I wouldn’t be ready, nor could I ever have been completely ready. But knowing it and living it are always two different things.
I expect that one day I’ll look back on today with a smile. Its the first step into a brave new world. But for right now, all I want to do is rework everything that I have planned and reread everything I will be teaching. I’m hoping this feeling goes away soon.
Either way, I’m done with lectures until Wednesday.
In a little less than three hours I go infront of the firing squad… I mean my Database Publishing Class. I do find it a little hard to believe that I’ll be teaching in just a short time. The eerie calm that had settled over me this week has been replaced by a state of abject terror — albiet a calm one.
I’m still changing and tweaking course material. I would write more but I need to finish my lecture notes.