Today's Class

Today I'm teaching PowerPoint 2000 Level 1. It's just as exciting as you might imagine. It's been a while since I taught boring ol' apps, actually. And I've got fourteen students. Should be interesting.

When I have fourteen students (or any number over nine or so), the day seems to fly by sometimes. With that many students, there ends up being lots of tangents, lots of mistakes, and lots of "can you repeat that?" Which is OK. I have a tendency to finish early, so this will assist me in finishing at a more reasonable time.

Some of our instructors run their courses past the scheduled end time (9am-4pm is normal timing), which I just can't imagine. I find that my students are completely out of it by 3:30 or so, and always ready to run screaming from the room. (I'm using comedic hyperbole here, just for those who don't know me well enough to know that my students don't end up in that state literally.)

Side note: I HATE people who say "this is *literally* killing me!" No, no it's not. Anyway.

I have 20 minutes to get ready for class. Anybody have any amphetamines?

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Sixteen students. That's as full as the room gets. Sixteen grownups is a lot of people to control, let me tell you. My friends who are teachers talk about 30-student+ classes, and I just shiver. Though kids might be easier because you have some actual power over them. These adults, they're nasty!

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alliensis has posted a link to a fascinating article on world poverty. I like to call it "how to solve world poverty quickly, easily, but with many complaints."

http://services.tacc.utah.edu/w2010/singer_text.htm

I do not agree with all of it. But I think it makes several interesting and important points that are frequently lost on the affluent in North America. (including me)

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Today the Canadian government announced that they are expanding their reference to the Supreme Court of Canada on same-sex marriage: adding one question, asking whether the opposite-sex restriction on civil marriage is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This will have no effect on the outcome: same-sex marriage will be legal in Canada, nationwide, eventually. But it boils down to another year waiting; there will likely be no judgement before 2005, at the earliest.

This rots my socks, because it's the government chickening out on an issue of basic human rights. Because the original hearings were to begin during the expected election campaign in April, Paul Martin decided to hide the issue and win an election before it actually comes into the press again. I feel that Martin made a cowardly choice.

This also makes me happy, because if it had come up during the election, the Reform-Alliance-tories would have made hay (and major votes) with their campaigning against the idea, including threats to use the notwithstanding clause and other such tools of discrimination. I also feel Martin did make a logical choice.

Argh! leapfish and I are getting married in Ottawa on May 23rd. It's awfully frustrating to have large portions of one's country really peeved by something that's none of their business.