First week of school.

Well, before I talk about my usual boring drivel, let me talk about a shameful thing I have done. I have signed up for Facebook. I resisted it for years, but it finally caught up with me. (Thankfully I've managed to avoid the pressure to sign up for MySpace or LiveJournal!) My blog here gets echoed over to Facebook, but pictures and stuff like that don't show up over there so this blog is still the main point of contact if you want to keep track of things.

The shame aside, this week was my first week of classes in the new year. In a pleasant surprise, I'm now only teaching four hours at the Sweathogs campus and eight hours with the real students. Three out of my four classes in the main campus are my students from last term and the last one is the one I inherited from Virginia after she went home in the middle of last term because of her cancer's sudden and drastic return. (I'll blog on her at some point but right now don't feel like it for reasons which will become obvious when I finally do get around to it.) The two classes at the Sweathogs campus, however, are new to me. They were Gudrun's students (the new teacher who replaced Peter when he ditched for a job that paid over five times as much) last term, but apparently I got them this term and she got at least two of mine from last term. The poor girl.

I really hate having to constantly contrast the two campuses, but really, it doesn't get much more "light and day" in comparison. Out of my four classes at the main campus, each class 27-29 students (except for the one I got from Virginia which weighs in at 39), I had four students missing total and maybe two or three who came in a few seconds late. Out of my two classes at the Sweathogs campus, one class at 24, the other 25 students, I had six students from one class not show up at all and three from the second (plus an additional four who snuck out at break and didn't come back before I closed the door). And I had well over a dozen total who came in late – some of them as much as fifteen minutes late.

You may have spotted that bit about the ones who snuck out at break and didn't make it back in time? Yeah. I'm harsh with those retards this term. And here's the funny thing: I told them I was going to do it. I gave them a single sheet of very simple rules that very clearly stated I would be doing this! It doesn't get much clearer than "the door closes when the bell rings and if you're not in here, you're marked absent". Yet four boys decided to sneak out during the ten minute break to buy breakfast. (Why aren't they buying breakfast before class starts? Well, you got me there. I have no damned idea!)

This term I'm not going to take any bullshit from these cretins. Their marks are divided into 40% for performance in the first half of term and 60% for the second half. I told them that missing class three times means that first mark is 0 and missing class five times means that second mark is also 0. And four boys decided to test it and are 20% of their way to getting zero for the whole course.

God-damned idiots.

At least, however, I get this all over with early in the week. My first class with the Sweathogs is Monday morning and my second is Wednesday. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings are good students and Friday afternoon is my last class of good students. I end the week on a very high double note.

The weather has taken a turn for the colder in this first week. In the two weeks leading up to classes the weather was getting warmer and warmer to the point that we were seeing 25C in the daytime and lows of 11C at night. Now, however, we're getting rain and temperatures that break 10C in the daytime only if we're lucky. I know you guys in Canada are laughing at the notion that this represents cold weather, but let me point out three salient features of this weather: humidity that never goes below 80% and is usually stuck straight up at 100%, medium to high winds and, last but not least, nothing at all is ever insulated so that outside temperature and humidity is pretty much also your inside temperature and humidity. Only the winds get broken. Somewhat. When your crazed wife and her crazed mother aren't opening them all for circulation. (I'm SO in trouble for that now when Joan reads this!)

Still, the weather this winter was a joy compared to last winter. This winter we had the usual two days with snow, none of which stayed on the ground longer than a few hours. It's almost embarrassing that I had a winter jacket, a fleece vest, a pair of winter gloves and a nice wool sweater sent from Canada this year to keep me warm. I mean I put them to good use here and there, but for the most part it was all overkill.