A Happy Phone Experience
Particularly since sonflower886 cannot stalk me on facebook any more access other social networking sites, I'm really trying to write here more often.
I had a delightful moment on the phone (to call it a conversation would be a stretch I think) with a student's parent today. The student has been out sick a lot this trimester (according to the student herself, she's only been in class 9 days this month). I decided that since the student got it together today (the first day I've seen her in weeks and weeks not hauling around her own box of tissues and bottle of hand sanitizer) to ask me for make-up work, I would call her home when I belatedly realized the student probably missed the several prior announcements about a test on Friday. The pleasant interactions with the parent were especially welcome because I'd had to send home rather grim progress report grades: the unfortunate result of being gone and sick is that you don't turn stuff in, and in the classes I teach, that's quite a downer on ye olde grades. I half-way expected to have the student's parent feel miffed. Whether the parent actually felt miffed I will, of course, never know. But the fact that I presumed a mild chewing-out and got a perfectly amiable voice which willingly volunteered information was just plain nice.
I got my Women in Antiquity mid-term exam back with flying colors. Given my experience with this professor, my knowledge going into the class, and above average test-taking skills, I expected to do well. I was not disappointed. OTOH, I'm fairly sure that the philosophy exam on Plato's Republic and Symposium yesterday did not go so well. I felt reasonably confident about the last one and scored 85% (which with the curve was an A-). This one had three out of ten answers which were really only sketchy. So, I'm now praying, uncharitably, that the rest of my classmates also had a bad time of it so that the curve will save my philosophically challenged, shadow-loving, tri-part soul.
And now for more homework and possibly some grading and definitely NOT missing my 8am Early American Literatures* tomorrow due to lack of sleep. No, I didn't just finish a monstrous Mountain Dew** Code Red at ten o'clock at night. What are you talking about?
~~~~~~~~~~~
* literature
c.1375, from L. lit(t)eratura "learning, writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from lit(t)era "letter." Originally "book learning" (it replaced O.E. boccræft), the meaning "literary production or work" is first attested 1779 in Johnson's "Lives of the English Poets" (he didn't include this definition in his dictionary, however); that of "body of writings from a period or people" is first recorded 1812.
**mountain dew in all four dictionaries accessed through dictionary-dot-com is listed as a term for moonshine. That, seriously, is not what I did not just finish drinking.
I had a delightful moment on the phone (to call it a conversation would be a stretch I think) with a student's parent today. The student has been out sick a lot this trimester (according to the student herself, she's only been in class 9 days this month). I decided that since the student got it together today (the first day I've seen her in weeks and weeks not hauling around her own box of tissues and bottle of hand sanitizer) to ask me for make-up work, I would call her home when I belatedly realized the student probably missed the several prior announcements about a test on Friday. The pleasant interactions with the parent were especially welcome because I'd had to send home rather grim progress report grades: the unfortunate result of being gone and sick is that you don't turn stuff in, and in the classes I teach, that's quite a downer on ye olde grades. I half-way expected to have the student's parent feel miffed. Whether the parent actually felt miffed I will, of course, never know. But the fact that I presumed a mild chewing-out and got a perfectly amiable voice which willingly volunteered information was just plain nice.
I got my Women in Antiquity mid-term exam back with flying colors. Given my experience with this professor, my knowledge going into the class, and above average test-taking skills, I expected to do well. I was not disappointed. OTOH, I'm fairly sure that the philosophy exam on Plato's Republic and Symposium yesterday did not go so well. I felt reasonably confident about the last one and scored 85% (which with the curve was an A-). This one had three out of ten answers which were really only sketchy. So, I'm now praying, uncharitably, that the rest of my classmates also had a bad time of it so that the curve will save my philosophically challenged, shadow-loving, tri-part soul.
And now for more homework and possibly some grading and definitely NOT missing my 8am Early American Literatures* tomorrow due to lack of sleep. No, I didn't just finish a monstrous Mountain Dew** Code Red at ten o'clock at night. What are you talking about?
~~~~~~~~~~~
* literature
c.1375, from L. lit(t)eratura "learning, writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from lit(t)era "letter." Originally "book learning" (it replaced O.E. boccræft), the meaning "literary production or work" is first attested 1779 in Johnson's "Lives of the English Poets" (he didn't include this definition in his dictionary, however); that of "body of writings from a period or people" is first recorded 1812.
**mountain dew in all four dictionaries accessed through dictionary-dot-com is listed as a term for moonshine. That, seriously, is not what I did not just finish drinking.