To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable [odds]...

The odds do seem unbeatable sometimes, don't they? Somehow, I am one of those people deemed worthy of life's impossible tasks, again and again. I wonder what marks a person out as the one that can do the undo-able? (Besides the fact that I have an annoying tendency to manage to pull them off...)

As my fall quarter is coming into clearer focus, the magnitude of my task and the scarcity of my most basic resource (teaching time) are becoming ever more apparent. Monday is my first day, and already I have gone from having an hour to having about 40 minutes a week in which to change the way a group of freshman conceive of their learning process, and thereby to increase their scores and turn them into fully successful chemistry students.

Forty minutes. To change the study habits and learning methods of 20 students. In a significant way. In ten weeks.

If anyone needs me, I'll be out by Puget Sound practicing my water-walking. I've been told that's a good miracle to have up your sleeve, when all else fails.