Random Thoughts From Grading Hell

As I sit here grading final exams, here are a few random thoughts going through my head:
  • How is it that, even though I've given the same exact final for years on end, students still amaze me by doing worse on it as each year goes by? And these are take home exams now. Geeze.
  • No, I'm not surprise that you are having problems uploading the assignment to Blackboard from your phone. Why are you writing your paper on your phone? No, I don't want to know.
  • Spell check. Is that such a difficult thing to grasp?
  • Please don't call Alexander the Great your "homey."
  • Christianity did not exist in Classical Greece. Heck, it didn't even start before the Roman Empire. Sorry to cause that disillusion.
  • While I agree that "nothing important happened in the Middle Ages" please don't write that in your essay. Same thing goes for calling Henry VIII a "man-whore."
  • The Enlightenment comes after the Scientific Revolution and not before.
  • And no, Kepler was not a medieval thinker.
  • There is no such thing as a "good" concentration camp.
And this is only halfway through the stack. I think I'll go grab that bottle of wine now.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Channeling Ayla

Some of you may remember the world's most famous grump, Ayla. Ya, I miss the old girl too. Well, I don't know what is going on but Phoebe has been channeling her an awful lot lately. She has been very grumpy ever since Kukai passed away. But it's more than that: First I noticed that she started hanging out in "jail" (the footrest under my desk), which was Ayla's favorite spot. Then she seriously started turning into a skutch (e.g., attempting to steal burger from me). Today, I saw her back into a defensive position near Loki and I swear I heard the thwap upside his head as she was thinking it. Is this Phoebe channeling Ayla or am I just getting a new grump in the house? Things will be interesting either way. I just can't wait to see Loki's reaction when she does act out on the thwap instead of just thinking about it. P.S. Why can't students ever thank me for As? All they ever do is bitch and moan when you give them Fs. I'm glad the seme...
Read more

Long Week

I just got some sad news today. It seems another kitty from the catblogosphere has passed on. Bonnie was special to me in the sense that she was a "friend" of Ayla's. It's kind of hard to explain to the uneducated masses that some people love to write not only about their pets but from their pet's point of view. That's what Jen does over at the Bonnie & Victor site. That's what I did over on the Ayla the Grump site. Through them, we make virtual friends and we learn to love their pets almost as much as they do. It broke my heart to hear that Bonnie passed away and so suddenly. Bear and I were talking about Ayla a few days ago and how I've been having so many problems starting up another kitty blog. He thinks that the Ayla site gave me a truly creative way to vent (unlike this site which is just venting). I think he's right but even though we have nine cats, none of them have the unique, snarky personality that Ayla had. I tried doin...
Read more

Goodbye My Friend

Image
On Friday, one of our kitties passed away very unexpectedly.  Loki was going to turn 8 next month but the Fates saw fit to take him away from us too early.  He was our big orange "monster" who was one of the kindest and most gentle souls you would ever meet and yet at the same time was as dumb as a doornail.  I think the latter was part of his attraction because no matter how big he got he retained the innocence of kittenhood. Last week we noticed that he was not feeling too well.  I thought that his seasonal allergies were acting up but it seemed a lot worse this time around.  On Wednesday morning I took him to see one of the new vets at our local animal hospital as our usual vet was off that day.  She believed he had a bad upper respiratory infection and gave him some antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory to help him feel better.  I had hoped that would work but the next day he was much, much worse.  He had a hard time breathing and I took him...
Read more