Pfffft.

I had a brilliant plan for getting through all of my grading this week. It still may work, but the plan is less brilliant and feasible when interrupted by students (which, though the stu who visited me yesterday was lovely and I hadn't seen hir in a couple of months--ze came to "check in on me")--it really set my grading back a notch. It is also less brilliant if one wakes up with a raging headache, must deal with a Stu who think that I need to give hir the 20% of hir grade back for missing so many classes* because Stu wasn't aware of the absence policy until I pointed out, as a courtesy, that Stu had over 9 absences. Um, I'm sorry you skipped the first day of class when I went over this, and I'm sorry that you didn't heed my advice on the second day of class when I stressed that you look at the syllabus and pay special attention to the attendance policy. Furthermore, said Stu and hir buddy have been "working" together on their papers. They are not turning in the same paper, but they are clearly writing them together because they're both idiots and make the exact same content mistakes--they both used pessimistic determinism in their essays and both confused that with determination. Each said, in hir own words that the character was "determined to make the hike, but had a negative attitude about it; therefore he was a pessimistic determinist." Uh, no. Not even close Stus. Of course Stu would just be *delighted* to get a C in my class. Again, uh, no.

Then another person (well say Person 1) whom I did not know as a student, was contacted by a former prof via text because of something a current stu (Person 2) said about a class and hir program, and the other person asked my opinion on this matter--professionalism, FB, whether it's wrong for people to get in trouble for expressing their opinions on FB even if they don't mention names. And whether Person 1 should call the prof who texted hir.  I'm like, even in real life you can't just say something, say it's your opinion, and then think you're exempt from critique or consequences. And if a student came to me and said that my class was worthless, on FB or not, there's no way in hell that person is getting a letter of recommendation for a job out of me. Unfortunately, unbeknownst Person 1, I am FB friends with Person 2 and saw the post (but didn't look at the comments), and Person 2, because ze has done a couple of tours in Iraq, believes that hir life experiences make hir qualified in every field. (When I complained a while back about how some of the people at XFit felt the need to trash professors and my colleagues and offer their "real world" advice on how classrooms should be managed, Person 2 is *always* one of them. And will actually be one of my students next quarter. Sigh). And maybe it is a pointless assignment or course. But you know what? People have to do a lot of shit hoop jumping for your job and stuff in real life, so get the fuck over it. So I tried not to say anything that might incriminate me or comment on anyone's behavior, and that took more energy than I wanted it to, and I told Person 1 to just stay out of it from this point on.

Also, I'm stressed about buying stuff for the kid. We're doing horrible with our budget right now because I'm tired and stressed and money just seems to be flying out the window on food and other stuff that I don't even know. I'm too exhausted to think about it. I think once I get the crib picked out, then I'll settle down. It just sucks not having anything in this small town (except a super expensive specialty store and I'm not paying $700-$1000 for a crib I can get for $400). So I'm just super stressed about that. And I'm going out of town this weekend. And I need this quarter to be over.

Also, I forgot to eat this morning until almost 10 because I got involved in all this other stuff. Under normal circumstances, this isn't a problem, but if I don't eat, I get sick, my headache gets worse, I get all sluggish. And once I get sluggish, it's not like I can get another cup of coffee either. When I did eat, I ate a ton, but I think the damage is done. And I have a stupid thing I have to go to tonight. And another stupid thing I have to go to tomorrow afternoon. I was feeling so good last week, and this week I'm so totally overwhelmed now. One bad day throws the who damn schedule off. Plus, it's the end of the quarter and the time of of "oh my god! Can I pass? Tell me what I need to do in the next two class periods to pass!"

And on that note, I need to get to class.


*on absence 5, you lose your participation points. You won't fail, but it's enough to knock you down a letter grade. Every absence after that, you lose 2% of your final grade. I hardly ever stuck to my "five absences and you fail policy" (which is the standard here), and almost always took away the participation points as a "compromise," so this allows me to stick to my guns and guarantees that stus who miss a lot still fail, which is usually reflected in their grades anyway. But those generally good students who just have crappy quarters get a stay of execution.