Today went smoothly. I taught a lab where I tackled both a new peice of software and conditional logic (if … then … else). Tonight I’m hoping to get ahead on research and take a pass at finally writing my Bleecker response (which will be hosted both here and on Conduit — an interdisiplinary web publication at RIT).

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.