So, that exam I was expecting to take yesterday got moved to next week.  After taking a really hardcore algebra course last year (and a pretty intense complex analysis one this year), I feel like our topology professor is babying our class sometimes.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the class.  The material is interesting (and not too challenging yet because it’s all stuff I’ve seen before or very minor extensions of things I’ve seen before), the professor is a great teacher, and the format is nice (after we turn in homework, we present the problems to the class, which is a great way to learn the concepts, see other ways of doing things, etc.).  But this is supposed to be a qualifying-exam-prep-course, and he allows one of the first year students to bitch in class about how many points he did or didn’t earn on an assignment (in my opinion, points earned has almost nothing to do with the final grade you earn in a graduate course; it’s all about demonstrating understanding), and he took a vote on whether or not to move the exam back a week since he forgot to remind us about the exam in advance.  The date was on the syllabus; if as a student you don’t mark your calendar with exams on the first day of classes, you sort of “deserve” to forget about an exam and get less time to study.

I know that’s harsh, and I would be pissed if the roles were reversed and someone was blogging this same thing about me.  I’m just taking a minute to be whiny and selfish.  Once I get it out in writing, I can go back to being optimistic and happy.  Grad school is hard, and it’s nice when a professor cuts you a break.  I should be happy about getting an extra week to study.  But it just makes next week and the following week so cramped with work for me that I’m having a hard time being happy about it right now.  Next Thursday I now have two exams to take back-to-back and a big assignment due.  Then the following Tuesday I’ll have a take-home-exam due.  That Wednesday I’m giving an exam in the class I’m teaching (and I have to have it graded same-day since the last day to drop a class is that week and my students need to know where they stand in that class ASAP).  And the Thursday of that week I have another big assignment due (maybe 2, if another problem set gets assigned in my other class in the meantime).  Luckily I don’t have a lot going on this weekend so I should be able to get some work done (even though I don’t particularly like working on weekends).  Or at least I didn’t think I had a lot going on and now my calendar is filling up a bit; hopefully I’ll have enough time.

Anyway, this morning, one of the higher-ups in the department is going to be sitting in on my class.  It’s a new thing they’re doing this semester (hopefully they aren’t doing this every semester; I feel like that would be a pain for them to try to schedule having someone observe every class every semester).  I’ve been pretty thorough in my lecture preparation for this part of the course.  So, that means I’ll feel confident, but catastrophe will probably strike and embarrass me at precisely the worst time.  🙂  Can’t wait!

Honestly, this semester is flying by, even faster than my first year.  I feel like we’re still just ramping up the beginning, but it’s already half over.  It’s not the beginning of the semester anymore; we are soundly in the middle now.  I don’t know what that means, if anything.

Yesterday I had a blog entry drafted in my head in which I would rant about terrible drivers (specifically, bad parking lot drivers).  But I never wrote it, and I feel like I’ve already complained enough for one entry.  Just suffice it to say that it continues to surprise me how FAST people drive in parking lots.  Every time I walk through one, I fear for my life, as if at any second someone will whip around a corner and run me down.  And there are so many close calls that this isn’t even an irrational fear.  Bad drivers are just as dangerous in parking lots as on highways, and that’s pretty amazing to me considering how idiotically some people drive on the highway.  Honestly, I’m surprised there aren’t MORE automobile-related injuries and deaths than there are.  (Just looked it up.  In the US in 2009:  1.13 crash-related deaths per 100 million miles traveled, 11.01 deaths per 100,000 population.  Surprisingly, this is trending downward over the years…  And I couldn’t find non-fatal injury stats as easily.)

Okay, that’s enough whining for one day.  Going to prep to teach.  Happy Friday, friends!