A Crazy Cat's Life

Well I survived the spring semester with only a few bangs and bruises. Only three caught plagiarized papers, no obvious cheating, and only a few students whining about their grades. That last one always has me laughing. "Why did I get a D?" Hmmm. I'm a sadistic bitch? No, that's not it. I am just playing with you by submitting a D when you deserved an A? No. Not it either. Oh, could it be that you deserved a D? Oh! What a thought. LOL. I even got one student who asked me yesterday if there was anything he could do to up his grade. Um, the semester ended. Maybe if you talked to me two months ago I could have given you extra credit or something. Sheesh. But I try to not let these few students get to me. Part of me feels like I failed them in some way. Did I not help them enough? Could I have done more? Bear constantly reminds me that I do a lot more for my students than most professors. Even still, I have that doubt. I do try to remind myself that...

/rant on Ugh. Why is it that whenever a paper is due, someone's grandparent dies? Or their computer exploded? Or their car breaks down? Or their house catches on fire? Why can't these kids just say "I'm sorry. I'm overwhelmed and I just couldn't get the paper done on time." At least that's believable. I'll take points off their paper but I'll accept it. Don't these kids know that honesty really is the best policy? Geeze. Oh yes, I have already gotten one student who complained about her F for the semester. The girl got a D and a D+ on her two papers and she tanked her exams. What did she expect? Heck, she even handed in the wrong freaking paper! She said "um well I read the first assignment sheet instead of the second assignment sheet so I did a second first assignment by accident." *cue the stupid little giggle* The girl should be thankful I even accepted that paper and the D was a "sympathy D." Now she...

...to piss me off. I'm a big softy. No. I'm worse than that. I'm a big squishy. Anybody who knows me knows they can get away with a lot of strange, and sometimes deviant, behavior around me. My big belief is that "if nobody is getting hurt, who cares." My students know this too. The day a paper is due I get the inevitable "my computer crashed. Can I e-mail it to you tomorrow?" I get all big and tough and say they're going to get a penalty for it being late but most of the time I don't give one. There is one thing I won't tolerate though. Academic dishonesty. This includes cheating on tests and especially plagiarism. Why? I don't care if the kid is just too lazy to study or do the writing. What upsets me is that there are other students who work their asses off to get good grades. Here comes this kid who screws up the curve and makes life harder for the ones who are actually working. Personally, I would hate to spend weeks on a paper and g...