Impractical practical

I am glad to be teaching Palaeoceanography this year! The module is done entirely by me. I had not taught it before. I had been involved in the student presentations, but that was all. In the summer I had prepared the lectures. I had decided to change the presentations, and prepared for that in the busy weeks before the start of the new year. And then there was the practical.

I assumed I could just do it as it had been done before by James, but then he emailed me and it turned out he had taken all the material for it to Cornwall. Oh dear. I would have to rethink this a bit! He had taken core sections and sieved samples. The core sections were things I was OK with to lose; I mean, they only look at them for a bit. They can look at the core log instead; is a lot less logistically complicated. I know it's less evocative, but I am likely to only do this practical once. I am not going through an enormous amount of trouble to get others just to give one cohort of students a slightly better experience. But the sieved samples are crucial. James said they had gone awol during his move, and he would have to make new ones! He promised me a split of every one.

I have already received news of the samples being ready; James has to be in Wales soon anyway, so he'll personally bring them. I hope he is not too busy to hand them over in person! In the meantime I have to rewrite the practical so it still makes sense with fewer materials...

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