I still can’t believe how busy I am, and it’s the second week of the semester. I’ve gone from only teaching two double periods (6 hours) of one class (Preperatory Math) a week, to three periods of Fundamental Math, and four periods of Computer and Information Technologies, along with four lab sections, for a total of 16.5 hours (4.5 of which I get paid extra for). That’s a pretty big increase.

Luckily I have two lectures for the computer class, so I only have to prepare once. Likewise, the four labs are exactly the same. And the former teacher, Stuart was on the ball, and handed over all his notes, labs, and tests, so all I really have to do is teach it.

The problem has been the Fundamental Math class, which I’m getting paid extra for, so I suppose I can’t really complain. But all we were given was a syllabus, and no materials. The syllabus is broken into four arbitrary, unrelated topics. Me and my co-teacher decided to take turns planning each topic. So I took the first one: algebra.

So we have three weeks to do what should be a review of algebra for them. I found a book in the library, and we hashed out a schedule. There’s no way to cover algebra in three weeks, so we picked some highlights, and tried to pick things that would be needed for the later topics, but it’s still pretty random.

Since we will have to use five different books, for the five unrelated topic, we can’t expect students to buy books. So going through the book, picking which pages we will use, then copying them has been a task. Since making copies involves money, I need all sorts of special permissions and signatures. I think tomorrow I will have my copies, though. Then I can make a binder that the students can copy.

Between this busy work, and the actual classes, which are spread out throughout the week, I’ve been away from my computer a lot. I also haven’t been able to study Thai. Hopefully next week things will settle down.