Surprise Day Off

Yesterday was a terrible day for Swell. She was very unhappy. I guess I started the unhappiness. We have been quite far behind in getting our notes ready for the classes we teach. We are often printing and photocopying them minutes before class starts.

Yesterday was that kind of day. I had finished my notes over the weekend and had them up and ready on the computer that is hooked to the printer. The bad thing was that the woman who works in the office that contains the printer was a touch late. So we had to wait, and wait, and wait. As soon as she arrived and turned everything on I tried to print my notes. No luck. Something was wrong. I'm no computer expert but I can usually figure some things out. When the error messages are written in Arabic it becomes a little bit more difficult to figure out exactly what is going on.

We called the computer guy. He fixed the connection and my notes were printing. Soon I had them photocopied and stapled but I had to run down to class and got there just in time to start lecture. (I'm ahead in all of my notes now so this shouldn't happen anymore). So Swell was stressing out for me and then saw me when I came back from that first class.

I came back shaking my head. These students - and I know optometry is different here and that they've had a rough go of it - really need a swift kick. All I see is blank stares as I lecture. I had enough so I asked what was going on. The only reply that I got was that they are not used to so much detail. TOUGH! You're in University, get used to it.

I see no way around presenting detail. If you have a patient in your chair and you see reduntant tissue aligned with a Dentate Process and it is located superior nasal you need to know that you don't need to rush them to the hospital. You need to know that this is found in a large percentage of people. You need to know that the risk of retinal detachement increases if the fold is found temporally and is large (covering process and bay). I can't just show you a picture and say this is a meridional fold - you need to know about it and what to do.

So I was shaking my head because they are overwhelmed (I've told them numberous times that they shouldn't understand everything when they leave lecture. They need to go home and read their notes. They need to go to the library and look at books.)

So that made Swell a little bit more angry. I then went to my next class. Teaching the same students procedures. They are so far behind it is scary. They have some knowledge but it is scattered and they don't know how to apply it to optometry. I got through about half of what I wanted to. Oh well.

Anyway after that class Swell had to go to her class where she was told that she is giving too many notes. "6 pages a day means that we get 18 pages a week. That's too much." Little do they know. They should see what we got.

She went downhill from there. "What are we doing here, etc. etc." She's better today because I told her its not her responsibility to condense the notes into bite size pieces. The students need to study. They need to determine how it is best for them to learn this information. 6 pages of notes is not a lot. I don't think the students are used to going home and reading and studying to learn. I think they're used to just getting it in lecture and knowing enough to pass their tests. We'll see how this week goes.

Today, Sunday, we got up at our regular 6 am time. Swell had a shower and we made breakfast. At 7:40 am our driver arrives to take us to school. He picks us up as well as the vice president of the University. We drive a few feet to the end of the parking lot where the vice president lives and wait 10 minutes. He never comes out of his house. The driver phones someone and then hands me the phone. We are told: "No lecture today." I say: "Yes, no lecture today (because on Sunday's we don't have class we just do preparation for future classes)." The guy on the other end of the phone says: "No University today." I say: "Oh..." and the driver takes us home.

We immediatly go onto the internet to find out what is going on.

Nablus - Ma'an - On Saturday the Hamas movement in Nablus announced that several of its members and supporters were attacked by gunmen, whom the movement described as "night militias." The assaults since yesterday are as follows:

1- Shooting at the house of the Palestinian Legislative Council member, Dawood Abu Seir, and an attempt to abduct him.
2- Shooting at the house of Dr Muhammad Sleiby and an attempt to abduct him.
3- Attempts to set alight the "change and reform" bloc's (Hamas) offices.
4- Abduction of Fayiz Al-Bishtawi from his work.
5- Abduction of Dr Khadir Sunduq, dean of Islamic religion at An-Najah University.

From: (http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=19199)

We say, in unision: "Oh...". Swell shouted: "SNOW DAY!" And then we went back to bed.

We're not sure why the Palestinians are being so stupid. We hope that they stop killing each other soon. The Dean of Islamic religon has been released already and we haven't seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. Strange day but we're getting some work done while at home.

'Till next time.