the (non) joy of teaching

oi... what a day.

3 class periods, every single one completely different.

period 1: 8:40-10:00... fairly standard. they answered my questions. they paid attention, they worked. we got stuff done, but nothing out of the ordinary

period 2: 10:20-11:40... the time flew. we laughed, we got equally much done to first hour, we laughed some more... it was a good time.

quote:
me: so if F is a vector field and we can write it as the gradient of f, then fill in the blanks... we say F is....
several students: conservative
me: awesome... and we say little f is a what kind of function for F?
several students: (laughingly) liberal!
me: well, that, but what's the math word?
(answer: potential, but that's beside the point.

period 3: 12:00-1:20... don't get me wrong... i'm not one to complain, BUT... every 5 minutes they asked me if i could stop lecturing and just let them go early. when they weren't asking that they sat there and just glared at me.... normally they're quiet, but they usually don't have so strong of a negative vibe. one of them came to my office hours later in the afternoon to turn something in, and on his way out, he came back and said "wait, i do have one question for you"
me: "what's that?"
student: "why was everyone giving you so much crap today?"
me: "not a clue, i was wondering that too... no matter what i did, you all looked unhappy to even think about participating... did i do something different that i'm unaware of?"
student: "no... i was just wondering if something happened before class that i didn't know about... it was weird"
me: "well, there's always next week. hopefully it'll be back to normal!"
student: "yeah, i hope so. we shouldn't be mean to you."

even the students picked up on it... i have no idea what was going on, but that section drained me... if i could have reversed sections 2 and 3 today it would have done wonders for my mood.

for the first time ever since i got it in like august, my pedometer battery is dead, so i don't know how many steps i've gone today... off to fix that, back eventually.