Hmmm....

I had several cups of yerba matè (maté?) tea this morning. It has very little caffeine (1% that of coffee). It contains other stimulants, though, and I'm noticing the effects. It's not quite the same as caffeine. I'd probably be bouncing off the walls if it were caffeine. Instead, I'm just...restless, and don't feel like concentrating on anything. Yet I still managed to get class notes written up and homework assignments printed out. Weird. Anyway, I'm hoping it has worn off some by 13:00, since I already have tendency to talk too fast in lecture.

Speaking of lecture...I finally decided to figure out how the overhead TI-83 calculator works (which meant I had to figure out how the ELMO works, since there's no ordinary projector in that room). It wasn't too bad, actually, but whoever designed the cart did not have people's safety in mind. There is a power strip. It is lodged in between two shelves, with maybe two inches of clearance for plugging stuff in. It is also upside down. "Let's make this hard to get to," they said. "What is the most inconvenient placement for a power strip? Where could we put it to make everyone's lives as difficult as possible?" The first time I tried to plug the overhead calculator into it, I got a very nasty shock. Take a standard static jolt. Multiply it by ten. Add an aching arm after the fact, with a bit of shakiness thrown in on the side. After that, I discovered that it didn't seem to matter whether I plugged in the overhead calculator or not, so I haven't been. It probably puts a bigger drain on the connected calculator's batteries, but I don't particularly care.