Off to a good start, I would say. Haven't touched this since I set it up, though slow and unreliable internet connections are a little to blame. Anyway, I suppose once you get desperate enough again, once you fall far enough behind where you are supposed to be with work, there will always be time to blog. To whom, I can't say, but anyway...

Contrary to what the titile says, I really haven't had any new ideas in a while. Teaching is starting to be a drag - always rushing to get lectures done, and then wondering if you are boring the students. Oh well. It should get better soon for me, if not for them - I am finished with the 'Tropical Forest Ecology' - so I should now go on to the 'Tropical Forest Management' half, which I really don't know enough about to diverge too far from Mike's outline.

One of those things - the more you know, the harder it is to teach. If only I were a school teacher working from a beginning syllabus I knew nothing about. That would be easy - teach what's in the book...who cares if there is any real depth to your knowledge. On the other hand university students are probably more likely to be forgiving of gaps in your knowledge than younger children. You aren't out to earn the respect of undergrads in the same way - they accept that you must know something well, and once you have that to stand on you are ok. A school teacher hasn't staked out a field in the same way, and so you assume that if they don't know what they are teaching that maybe they don't really possess any real knowledge.

Twice on the first day, you ask? Actually no one will ask because no one is reading this. I need to write to keep awake though - something to get my brain back to functionality. There is a good reason why I get nothing done on an afternoon - it's because I am too sleepy from working all night getting the next day's lecture done. Actually it's also true that I am barely functional in the afternoon - whether I have a substantial lunch or not. I would do well in a country that had a siesta. But instead I am sitting here in an airconditioned office, biding my time and waiting to go home so that I can get to work. That's really pathetic, but it's the simple truth. Procrastination and sleepiness - what else can I blame my inactivity on?

Oh, by the way - for the legion of readers that I don't have, my time is timestamp + 4 hours.

Six years after I first blogged, I'm going to give it another try. Back then no one read what I had to write, or had any way to find it. Here at least people will probably be able to find my posts, but I still have major doubts as to whether anyone will actually read it.

So what does one write about in one's first post? How about writing about how busy I am, which results, of course, in my doing something that takes up time but has nothing to do with all the work that needs doing. I suppose there is a universality to procrastination - when you have an exam the next day you feel an overwhelming need to clean the house. Today it's more than just procrastination though. I need a break, I need to focus my mind on something other than the work I need to do. This becomes my option for relaxation, my chance to unwind a little. Will I keep with this, for once, or will it fall by the wayside like most things I try my hand at? We shall see, I suppose. Now back to work - have to come up with a lab/field trip exercise for a class of 120 students for tomorrow. How will it go? We shall see, I suppose.