So, first day of class today. I was very surprised to discover that there were five women and one man in my class — I don't think there were five woment total in the 30-or-so-person intro class I took back in the day, so it's weird that they were the vast majority. Also, lots of econ majors, but I guess that's to be expected here. Anyway, as to how it went: meh. It's harder when you're on the other side of the blackboard, and though I've thought a lot about what I like in teachers I'm finding that it's really hard to actually make it happen. On my performance: I think I failed to thrill them, and it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to respond when I asked questions, but I don't think I was was super-boring either. The "teaching the experienced" bit turned out to be a basically moot point, since only one person had any serious experience and she didn't seem to have any problem with learning Scheme. I talked for a bit about how when you take English, you're not learning how to speak English, you're learning how to communicate effectively, and in the same sense this class was about teaching you to program effectively regardless of the language you choose to program in. People seemed to respond to that, so I think I'll use it again.

Wednesday is the next class, and due to an unfortunate schedule the (two-hour) lab follows the (two-hour) class after a 30-minute break. I have to keep people absorbing computer science for essentially 4 hours straight. Heaven help me.

By the way, the contest proceeds apace. 9:00AM on Friday I'll have a little heart attack and then I'll do a little dance.