[whispers]

I don't really believe in jinxes. Not really. And yet I feel a little cautious about saying out loud on the internet that for the first time ever, in 11 years of teaching (10 at Gladlyville U plus one as a doc student), I did not get a single email from students asking me to award them higher grades. 

In my final email to the class where there was a plagiarism issue, I said that any conversations about grades needed to happen synchronously, and that I would be available for those meetings "toward the end of next week." So it is possible that I will get some angry messages tomorrow asking for Friday meeting times. Maybe I should save this post in my drafts folder and publish it on Saturday. Or maybe I will live dangerously. 

My hope was that building in a brief waiting period would offer a reasonable option to the students with legitimate concerns while also filtering out the students moved by a surge of disappointment to take advantage of the low-friction nature of email. It doesn't cost anything to fire off an irate email, right? But usually, three days later, your itch to send that irate email has abated. I have no idea whether that's why things have been quieter at the end of this semester, but PHEW -- my Sunday angst was entirely unwarranted. What a relief! I wouldn't have believed you if you had returned from the future to tell me how it would shake out.