It Never Ends...

I first should start with the good news. My mom had the surgery and she's doing fine. The doctor is confident that all the melanoma was removed. Right now, my parents are back at home and are resting. They will see the doctor again at the end of the month to see how the reconstruction of the eyelid went.

Other bit of good news. I got a second interview for the tenure-track position I applied for. This means I'm down to the Round of Three. Not too bad considering there were over thirty applications in the beginning. What is left is the toughest part: convincing them I am better than the other two candidates. Hopefully that interview will go well. I have my fingers crossed.

As for the never ending part...what part of you failed and you earned that F do you not understand? I've got two students who are "shocked and outraged" by their Fs. One was very nice girl but she does not have any functioning brain cells in her head. She did not pass a single assignment or test the entire semester. She thinks it was her final paper that brought her grade down and has begged me to allow her to rewrite. I told her flat out that even if she did rewrite her paper and got a perfect score on it she would still fail. That shut her up.

The other one is more annoying. The kid missed 10 classes over the course of the semester. He had a B average but between the loss of class participation and the absences, he got an F. Now I'm getting e-mails saying how his cousin needed a kidney transplant and had to be with his family. If he had known how many absences he had he would've made a serious effort to get to class. Bah. I told him flat out: the time to talk about absences is during the course of the semester, not once it is over. He does not seem to accept that and wants to meet with me personally to discuss the matter. I will not do this. Now I have to meet with the head of my department over this. Grr. I don't need this right before my second interview.

At least the summer session is starting soon. Fresh batch of students and they tend to be better over the summer for some reason.

Comments

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said…
Cat, I'm glad your mom is doing well! And cheers on the interviews. Know what? I'd rather have a teacher with decent standards at my college anyway if I were hiring. The TEN absences is a bit much, especially with no check-in with the teacher. Won't go over well on a "real" job, so why should you accept that?

Hope things go well.
May 18, 2008 at 4:39 PM
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