Aaaaaaaaand...

I spent a few hours in the office this morning putting the finishing touches on the first-day activities for my three classes.

Three! This'll be my first semester with three preps. Wow. Zowie. Havah nagilah!

Fortunately, I've taught two of the classes before. One of them often enough that should I be called upon to do so, I could teach it with my eyes closed. (Fear not, gentle Calculus I folk, I shall not attempt this feat, nor shall I give you any less than a full measure of my preparations and attention!)

At this point, everything's printed up (save the handout for 368; the copier ran out of toner at the last minute) and posted on-line. I invite you to check it all out on the respective websites.

One nice thing about this semester is the relatively small number of students I'll be working with. After working with over 100 students last semester in one way or another, I'll be dealing with about 60 this time around, with 18 registered right now for my Calc II class, 24 in 280, 10 in Number Theory, and 3 for MATH 480, with a single undergraduate researcher dolloped on top. Even if I see a mad rush of calcfolk charging into my little afternoon calc hidey-hole in the next couple of days, I shouldn't have more than 60-65 people to deal with. And I know almost half of them already. Of my 24 MATH 280 students, f'rinstance, I've met 15 of them, and 13 of these people I've had in previous classes. (Some of them in as many as FOUR classes...you know who you are!)

As regular readers will note, this semester's starting up with a lot less fanfare and foofaraw on my part, and that's probably a good thing. I don't plan to undertake any major renovations in my courses this semester, though there'll definitely be some tweaking here and there. I'll let those tweaks and squeaks speak for themselves, though, rather than advertise them in bold 'n' brassy "hello world!" internet announcements.

It's getting rather dark outside, I hope this doesn't presage some sort of ominous goings-on tomorrow.

Better check the weather forecasts...