Tomorrow is the last day of classes, and it can’t come soon enough. Over at Not of General Interest today, there’s a post of “End-of-semester Certainties,” one of which is the fact (FACT!) that students will choose this time of the year to contact you, desperate for some chance to make up for all the things they haven’t done before, such as, oh, I don’t know, attending class, reading, or completing assignments. That sort of thing.
I feel in some ways sad and sorry for the little whippersnappers who are now facing the fact that they might lose their scholarships or sorority/fraternity standing — and believe me, according to them, it’s always some desperate case like that, where if they get a C instead of a B they will force their blind, crippled grandmother to take on two jobs to pay the tuition, or they will dishonor the spirit of all of their dead Tri Delt ancestors. Most of the time, though, I feel merely satisfied (almost gleeful!) at the thought of the worst chowderheads finally getting their comeuppance. Sleep through class the four times you actually attended? Turn in every single paper late? Skip for no reason on the day of your presentation? Comeuppance. COMEUPPANCE, I TELL YOU.
Another End-of-semester certainty I can add to the list is that no matter how hard you try to work ahead with grading, thinking you might take it easy during finals week and dead week, you will still always be sucked into a growing pile of crap so large as to have its own gravitational pull. There will be the usual late papers and other leftover detritus, for sure, as well as the general paperwork that is often forgotten but should at least be predictable. Then, just to make things interesting, there will be the entirely unexpected Other Tasks: in my case I have to write two abstracts for proposals for two different conferences, both due on the day before finals start. Of course, this bit of life is optional, but one conference is the big one for my discipline and the other is the big one for my area of study, so it would be nothing short of retarded if I did not get myself on both schedules.
In other news, I also have some (hopefully) (more) thoughtful things to say about the books I have been reading lately, but I suppose that will have to wait until the academic hurricane dies down a bit.
If it makes you feel any better, here’s what Philly dealt with today.
In his “Terror” class that I’ve told you about, he teaches “Sanctuary” and “American Pastoral.” Temple Drake is the female protagonist of the first and Mary Levov is the female protagonist (I’m using protagonist loosely, don’t crucify me) of the latter. In a paper he graded today, the student wrote about how Temple and Mary were in the same book and how they interacted (obviously, the student did not read EITHER novel). He actually asked me if a “D” were a cruel grade to give the paper. Apparently, he’s a more lenient grader than I am.
Oooo, conferences! Will they be held any place interesting? My annual pilgrimage to That Conference on That Greek Island appears to have been cancelled this year, much to my dismay. Now I have to search out other beautiful, warm places to peddle my thoughts on the Non-Local Gravitational Dynamics of Steaming Crap Piles.
You should have this sign over your office door:
Your Educational Salvation lies with Me and the keys to the kingdom of MyClass are available only to those who pay ample Tribute to the Lord, thy Teacher!”
(Please enter on your knees.)
C - OH NO THEY DIDN’T! Man, who do people think they are fooling sometimes? That is just ridiculous.
J - unfortunately nowhere too special. Mostly in my region, actually.