Day 56 - Chemistry book goes on sale

Today was the big day! Eight days after I put my Biology book online, I was finally in a position to start selling my Chemistry book. And not a moment too soon. More rumours are trickling out about the Leaving Cert potentially being cancelled, so if I wanted to sell any copies this side of the Summer, I needed to get it online today.

I’m quite tired at this stage now. I’d a reasonably gentle pace of life towards the start of lockdown, but the popularity of these Leaving Cert booklets has really made things a lot more hectic! I had one or two more things to edit in the booklet this morning, which I did. Then I uploaded details of my website etc to the Irish Science Teachers Facebook group. At 10am, I had to teach a chemistry class through Zoom, then by the time that was over, sales were already coming in. For the rest of the day, I balanced trying to teach my chemistry classes with trying to fulfil orders for my booklets. Putting up details of the Chemistry book has had a knock on effect of drawing peoples attention to the Biology book again, so it’s trickier this time trying to make sure that I email the correct book to people! Some people are also asking me for a Junior Science booklet now too!

In the evening, I headed out to run my mile for the Crusaders relay event. Out on the Lee Road, I improved my time by eleven seconds, to achieve seven minutes for the mile. A bit disappointed not to duck under seven minutes but happy to have improved! When I came home, I cooked some veggie chilli and sat down to watch the news and Primetime.

The big news this evening is that the Leaving Cert has been cancelled! I’m not sure I agree with this plan, as I think it’ll disadvantage students who really want the chance to prove themselves. It looks like their grades will be based on class tests etc now. A lot of students improve by a huge amount, from class tests to the Leaving Cert, in my experience!

By the time I went to bed this evening, I had sold seventy two copies of my Chemistry and Biology booklets. I really did get in in the nick of time!Read more