Light and Momentary

#FAMDRAL, baby

Oh, you guys, let's not talk about my day. Let's not talk about the student who managed to flap my unflappable chair. (Which means, in case you didn't guess, that I was far, far beyond flapped.) Let's not even cast a sideways glance at the situation that got referred to the college office today, because my chair has my back all the way, and the associate dean has hers. Let's not mention the fact that despite their support I came home so stressed that I required an anti-arrhythmia pill and a glass of wine. (It's been almost a year since I had any alcohol. It's just not my thing. Usually.) Let's not consider the fact that I will be meeting face to face with the student and the chair later this week, because this has been painful enough via email. Let's talk about something happy instead: let's talk about...[drum roll, please]...Martin Chuzzlewit!

It's almost time, friends, for the Fourth Annual May Dickens Read-Along, or #FAMDRAL for your social media hashtagging purposes. I am giving my last final on Wednesday, and then I am going to dive in on Thursday. This will give me 21 days in May to finish Martin Chuzzlewit. That's the perfect amount of time for me to read one of the fat Dickens novels -- it works out to about 40 pages a day. Who wants to join me in reading some Dickens?

In years past I have suggested that we all read the same Dickens novel, but in years past I have been suggesting books a little less obscure than Martin Chuzzlewit. I think you'll like Martin Chuzzzlewit, especially if we're reading it together and can chat about Sairey Gamp and CD's take on those brash Americans, but I would fully support a decision to read Oliver Twist instead. 

I have capital-O Opinions about Dickens, which I am happy to share if you are curious: two posts on how to read him, and another post on why. I'd love some company if you're up for a quick jaunt to the Victorian era.

P.S. Would also appreciate your prayers for speedy resolution of this situation.

Five Weeks

I am supposed to complete a triathlon five weeks from today. Eek. 

I am trying to remind myself that a year ago I bailed on my April 10K because I knew I was not in 10K shape -- and then the June triathlon was a blast. So if I was in 10K shape in late April (by my standards), then I don't need to stress about scrambling to get fit enough for the triathlon. Right??

But I think I have my work cut out for me.

Snowflake

On Monday it will have been six months since the election, and some days I still can't quite believe Donald Trump is our president. Maybe it feels rawer this weekend because of the House healthcare vote. I don't know. I was thinking about it while I flipped through radio stations tonight. My tolerance for Christian radio is low, and it's not about schlocky contemporary Christian music. It's because >80% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. I didn't want to listen to Catholic radio either, because I started fuming to myself about Neil Gorsuch's take on society's obligations to kids with disabilities. The 80s station was next. Hungry Like The Wolf doesn't make any more sense in 2017 than it did in 1982, but I cranked it up anyway. Because I'm reasonably certain that 80% of Duran Duran did not vote for Donald Trump.

No change

In my undergraduate classes about 10% of written assignments will have some degree of plagiarism. These days I define it in my syllabus, and spell out the potential consequences explicitly. When I introduce an assignment I say clearly, "I do not tolerate plagiarism. I would hate to give you a zero, but I will give you a zero if you plagiarize." I give zeroes. I don't back down on giving zeroes, no matter how plaintively a student asks me how she should have known that quoting Wikipedia without attribution would present a problem.

And yet I can't seem to move the needle. For the assignment I just finished grading, I was as firm as I knew how to be when I introduced the task. I freaked out a bunch of students who never had any intention of plagiarizing. Lots of them showed up in my office, asking questions like, "Is it okay for me to use this word that the authors use?" (Answer: yes.)

And...approximately 10% of the completed assignments had some degree of plagiarism. I know I have been complaining a lot this week, friends, but plagiarism is THE WORST. I don't know how to respond to it in a way that doesn't eat up a ridiculous quantity of hours and mental energy. I'm not going to stop requiring students to write, and I'm certainly not going to pretend I don't see it when they plagiarize.

One of the most painful things is the codas, the students who email in hopes that perhaps the axe needn't actually fall. You know what I might put in my syllabus? A re-grading policy: any re-grading requests must be made in person, not by email, and -- by the way -- re-grading may or may not work out in a student's favor. If I spot an oversight, the grade may go down further. Then I can just reply to the piteous emails with a screenshot of that part of the syllabus.

There is a cynical part of my brain observing that the students who are unmoved by the "don't plagiarize" part of a syllabus will be similarly unaffected by the hypothetical "don't beg" part of a syllabus. And at the same time, conscientious students may hesitate to request that I correct a math error because they're afraid I'll say HAHA TEN MORE POINTS DEDUCTED BECAUSE I HATE RE-GRADING!! (Which I would never ever do.) (Even though re-grading is really painful.)

This is not a problem I am likely to resolve tonight, here at the end of an exhausting week. Perhaps some solutions will present themselves to me after a good night's sleep. In any case, I am steadfastly refusing to check my email tonight. I don't even want to know what's in there right now.

Nest, Emptying

Today my high school freshman was accepted to a fantastic out-of-town high school, a boarding school that will actually cost us less than the Gladlyville Catholic high school. And I smiled big and said "congratulations!" and hugged him hard, even as my heart said "doooooon't leeeeaaaave meeeeeeeee!!!"

It is not really sensible that there are tears pricking at my eyes as I type this, but the tears prick anyway.

This is the ninth spring in which mourning doves have nested on our front porch. It always seems like a long wait while the mama broods those eggs in the April chill, but it goes so quickly once the eggs hatch. There's a day when we notice that she's sitting a little awkwardly on the nest, as if it's become more crowded up there, and then the next day we can usually spot a nestling's head peeking up over the edge of the nest, and then a day or two later we can see both babies clearly. Almost immediately afterward they will fly away.

Today was "see both babies" day. "Wow," I thought to myself when I came home from work, "they're almost ready to leave."

We've got your metaphors right here, folks.

16

So I am not going to get these papers returned tomorrow. I was basing my time estimates on a similar assignment that I've given to grad students in the past, but this version of the assignment asked them to do some additional things, both to prepare them for the hard part and to cushion their grades given the difficulty of the task. Having more things to grade means that grading takes longer. And oooof, I posted a comment on yesterday's post about an unhappy discovery that I still have to deal with.

I always aim to get assignments returned in a week, but this one is going to take me eight days to finish. In today's installment of Super-Boring Blog Posts, let me tell you my new plan: I am going to get another 6 papers graded before 10 tomorrow, and 4 more in the afternoon. Then I can finish them on Thursday, halleLUjah praise the Lord.

I came in this evening and said to my husband, "Say, 'Jamie, you love your job and grading is temporary.'" He obliged. Those things are true. It's just going to be a painful couple of days.

'Tis the season

You guys. I have SO MUCH grading to do. SO MUCH. Some of it is no biggie, but I am going to have to spend many hours on one task in particular. 

Tomorrow I would like to grade like a grownup instead of a procrastinator. So here is my thought: what if I set the expectation for myself that I will grade 4 assignments per hour until I get 28 of them graded? What if I plan to start at the top of the hour and GO until 4 of them are done, and then give myself permission to do whatever I'd like with the time remaining in the hour? (If I work efficiently, that will be about 15 minutes.) What if I plan something pleasant in the middle of the day? I already have something pleasant on the calendar for the evening.

Even as I type this I am battling the feeling that I ought to be more efficient. But that is not a realistic feeling: this will be a real slog. I will report back tomorrow with a number. Accountability works wonders.