First Week of Teaching

Some of you may now that I got a job teaching chemistry. I'm teaching one section of Intro to Chem, which is basically chemistry for non-majors and pre-nursing/radiology/med tech/etc. I'm also teaching one section of the matching lab. And yes, I already have grading, much as I attempted to avoid it. :)
My first day went pretty well--I didn't have a mass exodus when I told them I did NOT give multiple choice tests. I only had one student complain about using overheads instead of powerpoints ("Are you really not going to use powerpoints? Because...that was a lot of writing for me.) I did not get through as much material as I had hoped, but it's hard for me to know if that's because I was slow or because I don't have a good feel for my pacing. I did choose a few tricky examples, which meant taking an extra five minutes to convince them I was right...I'll try not to do that again. :)
Second day of teaching was long, since I have both lecture and lab in the afternoon. The only hiccup for lecture happened when I went through one concept and they said, "Wait, that's not how we did it in lab this week!" I calmly suggested that we set it aside until I have a chance to check the book (which is what the lecture is based on), and moved on.
Lab was a lot of fun--it's more laid-back than the lecture, and I have more chances to interact with the students. The best part was watching the safety video...the one I first watched when I took Dad's lab as a 13-year-old. An oldie but goodie, especially when they jab the broken glass rod into a glove full of red liquid. :) Although I tried my best to encourage the students to stay and work on their assignment for next week, they all cleared out after filling in the safety map. YAY! Ahem, I mean, I guess I'll be helping them next week.

No More Teasing

Even before I got pregnant, David would tease me about having twins--something about having two for the price of one. :) He thinks it'd be fun. Whenever I complained about how big I feel, he would tell me it's because we're having twins. Of course, I thought nothing of it...until last week. We went in for our heartbeat appointment, and after we listened to it (everything sounded great, by the way), I thought we were set. Well, the midwife asks me if I'm sure about my due date, because I feel more like 17 or 18 weeks instead of 14. FREAK OUT! I'm 100% positive, I tell her, but David likes to tease me about having twins--even though we don't really have a history in our family. She says, oh well, why don't we schedule an ultrasound just to make sure...it's might just be that you're small, but just to make sure. TOTAL FREAK OUT! Not that I'm averse to having twins, but it's a little much to think about for the first time, not to mention I need to be on my feet teaching for another 3 months.
Well, David says it's still possible, but the ultrasound today showed ONE darling little baby wiggling around inside. :) See for yourself!