One Week In...

[stoutfellow]

Things seem to have straightened out. One of the secretaries found me a loaner copy of the geometry textbook, and the publisher's rep has contacted me to say that they've sent a copy of the instructor's edition. Also, I've met with the calculus TA and worked out a general plan for the recitations. So, those two things have been cleared up.

I got the student evaluations from my summer course this morning as well. They were good; not spectacular, nor as good as I'd hoped, but there were no major complaints. (One student commented that I was very serious and should lighten up...)

I'm done with McKillip for the time being, having finished The Book of Atrix Wolfe and the two Cygnet books. The latter two fit the McKillip pattern, not revealing what's really going on until nearly the end. The Cygnet and the Sorceress actually has a lot in common with The Tower at Stony Wood; in each, the Powers intervene to rectify a serious danger, and their actions are mysterious - indeed, misleading - until the last moment. In both, the Powers seem malignant or at least callous, but it is ultimately shown that the real danger is purely human. (The last sentence also applies to The Cygnet and the Firebird, for that matter.)

I've almost done with the Levinson book, too - another twenty or twenty-five pages to go. I'll probably be able to report on it by Wednesday. (I expect to finish it tomorrow, but I'll need a bit more time to compose my comments.)

Comments

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it! I wasn't kidding about that being the stuff of nightmares. I still remember the nightmare before the semester started once about getting to the University only to discover that they had switched my course from German to Geography, the teaching of which I knew *nothing.* I woke in a cold sweat, truly GLAD it was a nightmare and not reality!

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

My most common academic nightmare is just the flip side of the usual scholastic one: it's late in the semester, and there's a course which I'm supposed to be teaching, but I've missed it a lot...