It’s not about grammar.
I have recently been using WriteRoom for some of my writing projects. Suomichris tipped me off to it a while back, and I’m currently still using the 30-day free trial. I’m not sure if I’ll purchase it at the end of the trial or not, but I certainly am loving the distraction-free, simple, adorably retro interface:
I feel like I should be taking breaks to play Oregon Trail.
Check it out here, if you’re interested
The Dickcheese I mentioned previously isn’t the only student here at Wordsmith who has threatened to file a grade grievance against me — let me tell you about a student I had this summer. I think I will call him Bubba. “Bubba” sounds like the name of a crazy-ass redneck, right? That’s what I’m going for.
So, Bubba plagiarized his final paper for his literature class. He just straight up googled, copied, and pasted. (That’s what we call the old “Google, Copy, Paste,” in the academic parlance.) It took me about five minutes from the time I began reading “his” essay until I had not only noticed it was plagiarized but had also found, bookmarked, printed out, highlighted, and cross-referenced the three websites whence the stolen material had come. It was an open and shut case.
Unfortunately, the process for dealing with such matters is not open and shut. It requires the sending of eighty-seven letters to eighty-seven different deans and vice presidents, the sacrifice of a Christian virgin, and the performance of certain other sacred and indescribable academic rites at the altar of the god of student judicial affairs.
Before any of this could happen, though, I had to make a legitimate effort to meet with the young whippersnapper. This is one of the rules. In my communications with the Bubba, however, things got a little bit crazy. I had asked him to let me know when he could meet me, but I didn’t say why I needed to see him. The first thing he did was start sending me a series of crazy emails demanding to know why he couldn’t have his paper back like everyone else and oh, by the way, no one has mentioned it, but he sure as shit didn’t PLAGIARIZE anything, oh no. Alls he DID, see, was use a thesaurus to come up with some better vocabulary, which he THOUGHT I would appreciate, but he GUESSED he was WRONG ABOUT ME. Also, Bubba wrote, he was willing to “fight to the death” over this issue, if it came to it. The series of emails (SERIES! Like, sixteen of them!) kept trickling into my inbox, and all the while he never answered my question of when we could meet.
Finally, exhausted by the whole endless game, I just told him via email that I would be submitting his crazy, redneck ass to the proper authorities. It was at this point that Bubba wrote back, “I am glad you are submitting this to [The Proper Authorities], because otherwise I was going to have to take it to the Dean myself!” And then I realized, without a fucking doubt, how crazy the kid actually was. Did he honestly believe he could file a grade grievance over this matter? Over a blatantly (and poorly) plagiarized essay? What the everloving fuck?
Things eventually began to wind down, though. I suppose Bubba either came to his senses or his parents gave him a talking to, but he decided to confess — via another series of crazy emails, of course. When the hearing finally came around, I was armed with a massive folder of evidence: not just his essay and the three plagiarized articles I’d found online, but also the series of crazy email denials, crazy email confessions, and desperate email apologies. Bubba didn’t even show up to the hearing.
After having to go through that endless, stressful, sanity-defying process (which stretched throughout the summer and into this Fall semester), I am no longer worried by the prospect of a grade grievance. I doubt old Dickcheese will even go through with his threat — surely he’ll see the futility in it, right? But then again, Bubba never saw that futility until after I had had to jump through all of the eighty-seven procedural hoops. I suppose relying on a student to see common sense is like waiting for help at the DMV. You may as well just pour yourself a cocktail, put up your feet, and get really good and damn comfortable.
It’s been another horrifyingly long week - so long, in fact, that last night I was too tired to finish the one bottle of light beer I had opened, and instead I trundled off to bed at 10:00. THE SHAME.
I spent the week conferring with my writing students about their essay revisions. As much as I love my writing students this semester, it’s still a rather daunting task. I believe I have bitched about the mental exhaustion it entails before (and probably several times), so I’ll leave that off now. You’re welcome.
The best part about my week of conferences, however, was the chest-blistering heartburn and skull-crushing, eye-watering headache I acquired after a night of pub trivia and beer consumption. There is something magical and evil in the draught beer at our trivia bar: every time I drink more than one glass of it (which, let’s face it, is every time I go there), I get a rip-roaring hangover (migraine?) headache like you would not believe. Every single time. I don’t even have to get drunk there to get one of their patented death-grip headaches. Science cannot explain this.
I suffered through the next day, which involved teaching two classes and conferring with about 18 students, by sheer force of will alone. It is lucky I did not murder a person.
To be more specific, it is lucky I did not murder this one student from last spring, let’s call him Dickcheese, who came by to complain about his participation grade.
Here’s the deal with Dickcheese: He spoke up in class almost every day. He was a real participator! And yet, I gave him a middling grade for participation. I had to. He almost never had his books or a notebook in class (which, in a literature class based on close reading, is a serious problem), and I busted him using his cell phone in class on several occasions. Both of those crimes lower the participation grade, as clearly indicated on the syllabus. Simple. Clear. Those are the rules of the game.
But good old Dickcheese, he cannot accept this. He is not even interested in the fact that my (hypothetically) raising his participation grade to a B, an A, or even an A+, would not change his semester average. He barely even got a B in the first place. Some might call that a generous B. Dickcheese does not care. It’s the principle of the matter for him, see. (And here, I agree. It absolutely is the principle of the matter.)
Dickcheese, after the discussion on this issue had pretty much circled around as many times as it could, decided it would then be appropriate to berate me for my syllabus. He did not appreciate the fact that we had spent more time on literature he didn’t like than on literature he did like. His favorite poet had been discussed for only one day, whereas a long novel he did not like (but couldn’t be bothered to remember, because if it wasn’t Favorite Poet, it wasn’t worth his time) was discussed for several days. Never mind the fact that he was comparing a 50-line lyric poem with a 300-page novel. Never mind THAT, because THAT would require sense and LOGIC, FORTHELOVEOFDOG.
Dickcheese has told me that if I do not change his grade, he will file a grade grievance against me. Bring it on, I say. The way the school works, they cannot actually force an instructor to change a grade. They might recommend it, but I doubt they will even do that once they hear both sides. I am not even concerned about this. I will, however, be GREATLY FUCKING AMUSED at his imminent disappointment.
The fact of the matter is, the dude did speak up a lot in class, which — IN THEORY — instructors appreciate. However, most of the shit he said in class was either incomprehensible or just incredibly far off target, due to his likely being high all the time. (He was even high, I suspect, when he came by my office, if I know anything about what people’s eyes look like after they burn one, and I think that I do.) In class, I usually had to find some way to transition from what he had said back to the true thread of discussion, which was not ever easy. I would have been happier if the poor bastard had kept his mouth shut, is the sad fact.
Thanks, everybody, for the words of encouragement here and elsewhere. It was really nice to wake up the morning of my presentation and see your friendly comments in my email!
My talk went well, even though the panel chair managed to cause some delays and technical difficulties — almost setting the room on fire by overloading an outlet and causing sizzling sparks! – before we even got started. She is now prominently featured on my Enemies List for that as well as for the fact that 30 seconds before the panel was to start she asked each of us what we wanted her to say when introducing us. My response, when she kept pressing me after I demurred, was to say “I can’t come up with a bio on the spot, so please just say I am an instructor at Wordsmith and that’s all.” Sheesh. Anyway, that bit doesn’t matter, because I had fun presenting my paper and listening to the others, which were all very interesting.
Tomorrow it’s back to work! I’ve got midterms to grade (significantly less painful than papers, except for the occasionally appalling handwriting) and classes to teach. I’ve also got to get my butt in gear on the job market — yes, I’ll be back on the stupid job market this year, looking for some fool university to double my salary and offer me instant tenure based on nothing more than my witty banter and killer rack. What? It could happen!
In other more exciting news, the TV world has been exploding with greatness lately, which leaves me a lot to post about over on the media blog. Time to go get caught up there.
I’ve got to dash off a quick post while my laptop seems to be working — earlier today, the display backlight wasn’t functioning, and, though the computer itself was working just fine, I couldn’t actually SEE anything on the screen. Knock wood and all, it seems fine now. In fact, I suspect that the only reason it wouldn’t work before was because I was sitting in the DMV waiting room (again!) (and there’s a happy, happy story about the DMV this time, but it will have to wait until I get the chance for a longer post). Of course it makes perfect sense that my laptop would stop working within the walls of the DMV office, since, apparently, NO WORK AT ALL is allowed to go on there. Seriously, WHAT DO THE EMPLOYEES DO?
At any rate, I’m free from all those worries for the moment, as I am taking a few days off from school to present a paper at a big conference for my discipline. I present my paper tomorrow morning, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t freaking out about it a little. For one thing, it’s one of my favorite ideas ever, so I’m really hoping I can convey it well to the listeners. For another thing, I had thought that, with the broken laptop and all, I wouldn’t be able to spend the evening lovingly tinkering with my sentences. (Fingers crossed, the laptop will KEEP working long enough for me to do that. Just my luck, I will hit “publish” on this tedious and inconsequential blog post a split second before the screen goes black again, leaving me and my paper in the dark.)
And now, I leave you to go watch the vice presidential debate. Have you seen Sarah Palin recently? Here are some videos on the media blog just in case you haven’t. That bitch is one fierce pitbull. [And by the way, the political button is staying up until the election. I normally never get all political over here, but for once I actually really care, so just accept it, OK?]
Wish me luck on my paper, wouldja? I am a horrible public speaker, so I need all the luck I can get!
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