Daily Bulletin, Monday, May 9, 1994 ECLIPSE TOMORROW: If the drizzle lets up in the next 24 hours, tomorrow will bring a strange sight to the heavens above southern Ontario: a rare annular eclipse of the sun, with the sun partly covered by the moon's shadow from 11:39 a.m. to 3:05 p.m., and a spectacular ring of fire around the shadow for a little more than two minutes starting at 1:20 p.m. It'll be beautiful, but there's danger, as a memo from UW safety director Kevin Stewart notes: "Staring directly at the sun may scar the retina and/or burn the optic nerve, which can result in permanent and irreversible blindness. There is no pain associated with the burning of the optic nerve; therefore people, especially children who may be tempted to look direclty at the eclipse, can be completely unaware of the damage they are causing themselves. Parents and caregivers in particular should be aware of the danger so they can better protect children. Canadians are advised to watch the eclipse on television and to teach their children never to look directly at the sun." CBC Newsworld television coverage of the eclipse will be piped into Davis Centre room 1351, for anyone who wants to watch. The "colour commentator" on Newsworld will be Ralph Chou of UW's school of optometry, a long-time amateur astronomer and self-styled "eclipse chaser". Graduate students in UW's physics department will be using the Physics building telescope, and images from the University of Guelph telescope will be piped into the "link" classroom, Chemistry 2 room 079. Physics professor Pim Fitzgerald will be an expert commentator on Rogers Cable (channel 20) coverage of the eclipse, starting at about 12:30 p.m. THE WRITING LIFE: Michael Higgins of St. Jerome's College speaks at noon today (Theatre of the Arts) about "Monks, Monsters and Manuscripts: Reflections on the Writing Life". He's sponsored by the Friends of the Library organization, which promises "an entertaining 30-40 minutes reflecting on his experiences as an author and scriptwriter, including his adventures and misadventures in libraries. UW president James Downey, the featured speaker at last year's Friends lecture, will provide the introductory remarks. All faculty, staff, students and community members are welcome to attend." The lecture highlights a display of books by UW writers, seen in both Davis and Dana Porter Libraries this month. ALSO TODAY: A "Coming Out Discussion Group" sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Liberation of Waterloo will hold an organizational meeting this evening -- Modern Languages room 104, 7:30 p.m. "People who are just 'coming out' are particularly encouraged to attend," organizers say. The phone number for information about GLLOW is 884-4569. BUILDING ADDITIONS: Modest additions to the Optometry building and Burt Matthews Hall are being proposed under the federal-provincial "infrastructure" job-creation program. The provost, Jim Kalbfleisch, reminded last week's meeting of department heads that the governments will provide about $3 million for UW if the university kicks in $1.5 million, presumably from private sector fund raising. He said officials have decided that they'd like to spend about $600,000 of the total on bringing the Village residences up to modern fire safety standards, with the rest being divided about equally between building new space for the optometry school and giving applied health sciences additional space in BMH. Dennis Huber, director of business services in the plant operations department, is busy this week getting proposals ready to send to the federal-provincial committee that has to give its okay before the projects are definite. He said it could be six to eight weeks before the committee gives its answer. Chris Redmond Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo 888-4567 ext. 3004 credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca