Day 30, Tuesday

I really don't want this to become a habit, I've got things to do during these prep periods

I got some grading done and handed back! Only an increasing number of labs to go!

I came up against a problem that may have something to do with some of the confusion I see sometimes when I work problems. The students don't have a grasp of the commutative property, so if I'm multiplying things together in one order it's clear as day, but if I multiply in another order then it might as well be Greek. I think I can be more disciplined about this in the future, but it's really hard to walk back something like that, especially because I have a math degree and commuting is my life's blood.

It was a pretty good day, though this was another one of those days where I could feel myself being boring. There were some good spots with metaphors that I used, especially one involving blocking doors and/or seats, but boiling point elevation and freezing point depression are only good if you put them to work, and in this case I was just introducing the concepts

Remember that problem I had with Shane et. al.? Didn't really crop up, not sure what the rules are for the good days as opposed to the bad days. I'm sure it will crop up again and I can give that talk when it happens. Instead, that section was really good with drawing out examples when I told them that solute particles aren't included in a crystal. The melted and refrozen popsicle example went over well on that front.

This is about after school, but I was really tired, so I had two cups of coffee with dinner. Apparently coffee is not my friend; I spent the next 4ish hours with a splitting headache, nausea and the jitters and it didn't even make me less tired. I'm not sure what I expected, tea usually has either no effect or a calming effect and previous experiments with coffee have been mixed. Also, the one time I tried Mountain Dew my lips started tingling so I hardly drank any of it. I am apparently not meant to be caffeinated.