Bits & pieces
I haven't felt much like writing in a while. There's something awful about coming back to work after spring break. I went to visit friends in Gainesville, Florida, and just relaxed in good company. Then, returning to work, I had lost two weekends of grading and preparation, was behind in everything, and every day was a race to get handouts and quizzes made and copied, and to try and start grading those goddammed lab reports from two months ago that students had about given up hope of ever seeing again.
Finally a weekend, too exhausted and grumpy to smile, and a ball-breaking yoga workshop that only lasted four hours but used up the whole day. Oh, but I felt a lot better afterward. Lab reports still ungraded. So all this week more racing the clock, giving and grading exams, and finally slogged through the lab reports just in time to receive another batch next week.
I've been grumpy and exhausted for too long. I think it has become depression, or maybe just unhappiness, which has a reason. Only six more weeks to go.
One of my students told me today that he can both read and write upside down almost as well as right side up. He has a funny brain thing that ends with -asia. If he does something with one hand, the other hand does it too. Still, he struggled against it and learned to play piano. He walks around with his head full of all the facts he's learned from everywhere, like today he went on about how they set clocks to Greenwich mean time and what they call it nowadays. He and his wife are both taking my class, and both are good students -- the kind that make teaching fun. I have about five like that.
On the other extreme is the student that makes the highest grade on everything but is not interested in the material he is learning. He works hard to learn as little as possible, only what he will be tested on. Nice guy, but I've come to dislike him intensely.
Filling out the middle are all the hopelessly underprepared students that are failing the class. One of those is a very pretty and polished young woman, serene and happy, who always makes the lowest grade in the class. She leaves most of her exam blank and sits there pretending to work on it until somebody else finishes and leaves so she won't be conspicuous leaving after only ten minutes. This week she asks, for the very first time, to come to my office for help so she can pass. I have to pretend that it isn't soooo too late she might as well not waste both our time. Today in lab she asked me where is the 2 on the pipette. (She needed to pipette 2 milliliters into a test tube.) I said there's no 2 because it's a 1 milliliter pipette. She looks puzzled, starts to ask how.... I said to fill it up and empty it twice, suppressing the "DUH!"
I really need to retire before I smack somebody.
Finally a weekend, too exhausted and grumpy to smile, and a ball-breaking yoga workshop that only lasted four hours but used up the whole day. Oh, but I felt a lot better afterward. Lab reports still ungraded. So all this week more racing the clock, giving and grading exams, and finally slogged through the lab reports just in time to receive another batch next week.
I've been grumpy and exhausted for too long. I think it has become depression, or maybe just unhappiness, which has a reason. Only six more weeks to go.
One of my students told me today that he can both read and write upside down almost as well as right side up. He has a funny brain thing that ends with -asia. If he does something with one hand, the other hand does it too. Still, he struggled against it and learned to play piano. He walks around with his head full of all the facts he's learned from everywhere, like today he went on about how they set clocks to Greenwich mean time and what they call it nowadays. He and his wife are both taking my class, and both are good students -- the kind that make teaching fun. I have about five like that.
On the other extreme is the student that makes the highest grade on everything but is not interested in the material he is learning. He works hard to learn as little as possible, only what he will be tested on. Nice guy, but I've come to dislike him intensely.
Filling out the middle are all the hopelessly underprepared students that are failing the class. One of those is a very pretty and polished young woman, serene and happy, who always makes the lowest grade in the class. She leaves most of her exam blank and sits there pretending to work on it until somebody else finishes and leaves so she won't be conspicuous leaving after only ten minutes. This week she asks, for the very first time, to come to my office for help so she can pass. I have to pretend that it isn't soooo too late she might as well not waste both our time. Today in lab she asked me where is the 2 on the pipette. (She needed to pipette 2 milliliters into a test tube.) I said there's no 2 because it's a 1 milliliter pipette. She looks puzzled, starts to ask how.... I said to fill it up and empty it twice, suppressing the "DUH!"
I really need to retire before I smack somebody.
posted by Cranky Ol' Lady at 11:24 PM
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