Murphy's Law strikes again

I've had a fairly mad few days this week. Yesterday morning I had to present a double lecture in a "short fat course". "Short fat" roughly translates as "cram a whole terms' worth of material into two intensive weeks, and hope some of it hammers its way into the students' little brains". I'm yet to be convinced of the merits of this approach - it just seems to play into the students' preference to only actually retain what you're trying to teach them until they've passed the course, after which they can (and do) promptly forget it.

This particular course is entitled "Formation and evolution of the ocean crust", and I was obviously down to do the magnetism - the source and origin of the "magnetic stripes" and what they tell us about plate tectonics, the behaviour of the Earth's magnetic field over time, and construction of the oceanic crust (which, now I think of it, would make a rather nice series, if I ever get the time).

Anyway, I was asked to do this lecture at rather short notice, so I had to work quite hard to get the reading done, then sort out the presentation. It was tight, but by yesterday morning I had just about got everything ready - all I had to do was print and photocopy the handouts. Sadly, I then ran into the universal law of printers - they always stop working when you really need them. Leaving it until half an hour before the lecture starts to print the handouts certainly qualifies.

An hour of running around the building between various computers and printers, the lecture room and the IT department later, I had my handouts, as well as severely elevated blood pressure and adrenalin levels. I'm just thankful I brought in my laptop to run the presentation from...