First lecture

Had my first class today! I've got 8 students, mostly chemistry master's students and 1 physics master's student. I knew I'd feel so much more comfortable after I got the first lecture over with! Now I have an idea of what the students want and what their background is. I designed the course thinking they would have had quantum mechanics and solid state physics, but most had not. So, I'll take some time to review those topics, which is good b/c I thought I might be short on material. Also, the last 4 weeks, someone else is teaching topics that are not in my expertise, so technically I'm responsible for 12 lectures, which can be 2- 3 hrs long each. I'm not used to talking for that long! It's nice that its up to me and there's no strict guidelines. But that also makes me a bit insecure b/c for my first time it would be nice to have some more guidelines, so that I know what I'm doing or have specific goals set for me. Oh well, I guess that's part of being out of school and teaching my own class.

Nisha was in town yesterday! so I went into San Jose to have dinner with her and friends. They're vacay-ing in CR this week. It was nice to see a familial face in a foreign country.

The rain/thunder/lightning have been crazy the past few days, and I hear it gets worse in September! I haven't been drenched yet, but my canvas sneakers have been drenched a few times.

I need to continue doing some spanish exercises and studying vocabulary, or else I'm going to forget what I re-learned last week!