Hell day

I knew today was going to be bad.

I had to give 6 demos of my class website to my general biology students, starting at 8:45 a.m. The computer labs only hold about half the class, so I had to give demos to half the students, kick them out, and rotate the other half in. I also knew I was in trouble, because I learned yesterday that about two-thirds of my students can't log into the class website, which would sort of be helpful when you're trying to do a demo of said website. While I was giving the demo, students who could log in told me some of the features I put into the class website weren't working.

I also learned that another instructional website I was using can't be reached from our main campus. I knew I was going to be faced with technical stuff trying to trace that problem. That's still not fixed, although that one isn't urgent.

I also agreed to give a guest lecture for my colleague Anita, who has a late afternoon early evening class that runs for two and a half hours and ends at 7:00 pm. This made for a very late start and a very early finish. And did I mention that this was not a class I had formally lectured in before? It was evolution, which I do study and is one of my favourite subjects, but just because I know this stuff doesn't mean it's easy to put everything into some sort of coherent lecture -- especially a two and a half hour non-stop lecture.

What really did me in for the day was that about 90 minutes before I was to give my guest lecture, I was sitting at my computer, working away on slides and notes and thinking about what I needed to do... and my computer screen blanked out.

Actually, it wasn't completely blank. It was just about 0.01% as bright as it should be. Dang near black. I found I was just barely able to see enough to save what I was working on. But not enough that I could read any screen text that might help me fix the problem. I have an "integrated" computer, i.e., the screen and computer are all one unit, so I can't unplug the existing screen and get a new one. There is a port for a second screen, but something is preventing it from working right, and it flips into power saving more after the boot screen. The practical end of all of this is that I have a big doorstop where my computer used to be. Or maybe it's a paperweight.

Still, I do count my blessings. I will take a screen blanking out over a hard disk disaster any day. At least no data should be lost. But it's going to make trying to do anything very indirect and time consuming until its fixed.

I knew today was going to be a hell day, and was saying so to people yesterday. If only I'd known how right I was going to be... But I am convinced that tomorrow will be better!