Tribulations of a Demonstrator

Tribulation, another interesting word. I'll not be held accountable if it makes no sense in this context.

I'm in the undergrad lab at the moment, demonstrating PHYS342 - Advanced Digital Design. It's pretty cool stuff, the kids (I call them kids, regardless of if in fact they are older than me) are learning how to program FPGAs. This is one of those topics where I can explain it a little more in detail, but that would require a whole extra layer of information, which probably needs another layer underneath that. I'll just say that I know this stuff pretty well, and I use it a lot in my own research.

So, how can I be demonstrating and blogging at the same time you ask? Well, this week is the last week of labs, so only the students who are behind in their work even need to come in. In today's case, that is only one person, so I have lots of free time. Oodles of it. Too much really. I'm bored. Next year I think I'll avoid demonstrating if I can. The extra pocket money is nice, but having to schedule my week around the labs is a pain in the ass.

On the plus side, my one student has just left early, so I can go now too =)