For reasons that I'm sure seemed good at the time, the University of Utah has installed dry-erase boards in place of chalkboards on the first-floor classrooms of our building. This is ordinarily a bit irritating--unlike pieces of chalk, markers don't get shorter as they wear out, and the ink is harder than chalk dust to get off your hands. Today I manage to go past irritation--to, yes, the state of Extreme Annoyance. Five minutes before class, I couldn't find my dry-erase marker set (it's entirely possible that it's on my desk or even in my briefcase, both of which are fairly cluttered), so I had to grab a small skinny marker from out of the supply cabinet. It took my thirty-five minutes to fill up the board. I then passed the eraser over the board--and nothing happened. Turns out it was a wet-erase marker. The students were highly amused. Unfortunately, the same people (I'm sure) who put in the dry-erase boards have also filled the bathrooms with those rolling cloth thingies instead of paper towels, so I had to use wet toilet paper to try to clean the board for the next teacher. It is still all grey and blurry. Phoo.
Posted by Matt Weiner at February 27, 2004 11:42 AM