Well, I was attempting to change my schedule, so I tried to sleep at around
10:00, I was fast asleep when Rajeev called. I talked with him and lay down at
around 11:00 when Gandhi knocked on my door. For him, the internet was down.
Aaargh, troubleshooting. I attempted a few things but someohw I could not make
his windows box work. The DNS resolver for some reason was not working. I
uninstalled the TCP/IP stack and reinstalled it, but all to no avail. Finally, I
asked him to reinstall windows and went to sleep... at around 2:00am. Woke up at
10:30 and rushed to office.

<p>

Today, as I hold my first TA office hours for the graduate level software
engineering class, I realize the futility of office hours. For an undergrad
class, the office hours are bad enough, for a grad class, they are just a waste
of time. I think, the only students who come to office hours are those that are
completely lost (and usually they haven't attended classes and expect you to go
over all the material, or they have a problem with grades.) Very rarely does a
student come in with a genuine problem that they are stuck with and need help.
Of all my years of being a TA, I believe I haven't seen more than 30-40 come to
me in my office hours. Just to make sure that I am not a really bad TA, I have
consulted others and they report similar experiences. Grad students as a rule of
thumb, never ever end up coming to office hours. Probably if you made a mistake
in grading or something, they would just bring that to your notice. That's about
it. No more and no less. 

<p>

So, here I sit in the CoC commons area and wait for the grad students to trickle
in, but I know they will never come.