Hide and Seek

The first day of a semester is rarely a good day. In fact, the first week of any semester is typically described as a long, chaotic, exhausting, and trying week. Today is the first day of Semester 2 of the 2006/2007 session.

I arrived this morning to find that I have four overloaded classes. Registration beyond the upper maximum number of forty-five (the nominal maximum class size is forty) is supposed to require approval from the course instructor. I was definitely surprised, but decided not to spoil my day by getting annoyed. Then, I found out that I was made course coordinator for one of the courses, and had to prepare the course outline like, yesterday. To top them all, I went to my first class to find the lecture room occupied by another class.

But I was in a good mood today, and I didn’t want to spoil that good mood. So I got everything straightened up – found myself another lecture room a few doors down, completed and distributed the course outline, and go hide.

The first week of the semester is commonly known as the add-and-drop period, or officially the adjustment period. This is when students are given the opportunity to register and deregister courses, quite literally, as they wish. While most of the activities are concentrated around the many computer labs, serving as online registration centers, many students will also go around hunting for lecturers to sign manual registration forms. Manual registration is meant for students who are not able to register online on their own for various reasons like having failed the course previously or failing a prerequisite course and messing up their study plan by running out of courses they could take. Others, however, are just too lazy to wait for a free terminal at the labs.

My classes are full already, so, instead of having to endure the endless knocking on my door, I took refuge at the department office.

Still, I signed three forms today. One was a former student, who failed the last time and wanted to take another shot with me, while the other two waited outside my office till the end of the workday – got to give them credit for the effort.