Sigh, ah what might have been…
I assume you grade your students’ papers yourself?
The final I took just last week was graded by CAs/TAs, and I’ve disputed my grade on an assignment once before simply because I took a different (but still correct) route to solve a problem, and the CA graded me wrong for it.
The professor looked at it, asked me to explain my reasoning, and then gave me full credit, because it worked fine.
On the other hand, I’m sure some people dispute frivolously… which is aggravating.
One of the major points of the class is to learn how to write an academic paper in anthropology and how to do a proper revision. So everyone gets to do a draft of each paper and they have to have a ten minute conference with me after they get the comments back so that they can ask questions/flesh out ideas before they submit their final revision.
Which means that about half of them listen and totally revamp their ideas based on the feedback they get, while a quarter clings to what they learned in their Humanities 101 writing class and instead of citing some author from a peer reviewed journal they talk about how they had this conversation once with a black guy about 9/11. Which is almost as bad as citing wikipedia and just as useful. And the last quarter meticulously goes through and changes only the words/sentences that I commented on and leaves the rest intact, regardless of whether or not it still makes sense.
And then I get emails about how disappointed with their paper grades they were. I’ve already got two of those! To be fair, I have three times as many nice emails thanking me for the semester, which is nice. But those other emails annoyed me so much I will not be checking my email for the rest of the night. Or replying!
Mrenda
4484
That’s cool. Lecturers who are willing to engage with students are what made me enjoy university. It made my final year thoroughly enjoyable (if still hard work.) As most of my lectures were small enough for classes to discuss issues. Although it meant any class with more than 20 people was torturous.
Here I am in the UK again, 16 years after moving away. 16 years is like 1955-71.
Applications really, really confuse me when they request permission to run as Administrator and then run anyway if I say No.
I can’t believe [name of cute Australian chick] nearly got me to wear a tight, sequined dress to that Halloween party. And I totally would have, if it had fit. Because cute Australian chick was cute; not because I liked the dress, or anything…
Sarkus
4488
Late Monday night I renewed my car tabs online. Today they showed up in the mail. But when I checked my bank account, the charge for them still hadn’t shown up even as a pending charge.
I hope this doesn’t turn into one of those scenarios where they never actually charge me . . .
Yay for iPhone tethering, which is letting me do early-morning on-call support for a European customer even on a holiday weekend while I’m visiting family, who don’t currently have Internet access!
Wait.
Boo for iPhone tethering…
Okay, movie people, what should I watch tonight? Casablanca, A Tale of Springtime, or Terminator: Salvation?
Sounds good. I’ve got that on HD-DVD around here somewhere…
On second thought, I think I’m going to go with Amelie.
On third thought, InstantWatcher lies! That’s not available right now…
So, the BBC’s brain gender quiz says I’ve got a mostly gender-neutral, slightly feminine-leaning brain. That’s interesting.
I think the test falls apart for people who just do well at all the tests, like these things usually do. I landed in neutral territory myself, slightly male. Some of these things seem dubious at best, though. My sexual orientation really doesn’t have a lot to do with my brain’s sexual bias I’d venture, and the whole dominant thumb thing seems like phrenology level bullshit. I’ve had a prior class that listed that as a simple genetic marker, not anything having to do with one’s brain or even dominant hand.
The testosterone/finger theory seems dubious as well, a correlation maybe, but not a causation.
We saw a commercial last night for Digiorno Pizza & Cookies. Should they have just put a pot leaf on the box, or is it obvious already for whom this product is meant?
“Look inside the box for a special online code to get the cell phone numbers for three dealers in your zip code!”
True. These things are just a bit of fun, really.
We made the mistake of ordering a pizza for delivery from a local mom & pop shop a couple years ago, and since then we would get text messages from them at 4:20pm on random days telling us to order pizza and snacks to “feed the munchies” for delivery. It took four calls before we were finally taken off the list. I am not amused.
Their food sucks anyway.
I guess I’ve been pretty spoiled since I got a 4 out of 5 in my evaluations this semester and I think that’s low. Though really considering what happened this semester and how distracted I was, I’m surprised it’s not way lower.
Did you ask them if they were cops? They have to tell you if they are.
Mrenda
4500
Non-smokers who carry lighters around with them are generally a strange bunch. I don’t mean people going on a camping trip, or welders. More the guys who say they have one to “light a girl’s cigarette” or “in case I have to sterilise my knife.”
And it’s usually a zippo.
