Field of Science

Day-Date Disconnect

So many years of academic life have resulted in the Phactor having a terrible day-date disconnect. It's not that dates for events are unknown to myself, it's that the date is not connected to my daily/weekly world. That an event is happening on the 14nd is known, but that the 14nd is today is not. This has evolved because my life has always revolved around scheduling on a MWF or TR basis upon which a sequence of lectures and labs is superimposed, so dates are little needed. Perhaps some of the problem is the carefully cultivated and nuanced forgetfulness of a senior academic so preoccupied with weightier thoughts that some lapses can easily be understood and forgiven. Department secretaries remind me when classes start and students bug me about finals, and it all works, mostly. A weekly desk planner has been in service for years and the transition to computer scheduling, weakly attempted, has always seemed more trouble than it is worth. But trouble began when flipping forward a couple of weeks and then back, one extra page was turned and lo and behold, 30 days hath September, April, June, but November has 37, or so it appeared having done the same week twice, and no, lectures and labs were not repeated; the Phactor is absent minded, not senile. So now there are 3 weeks left in the semester, not 4, and rather than congratulating myself for being more or less on schedule, things are rather a bit behind, and therefore quite normal. And so the world turns, and we return to the regularly scheduled calendar of events, and the professor gets to announce an exam, on a Monday. This is certain to help the teaching evaluations.

No comments: