Dead Relatives

[intertext]

The number of "deaths in the family" among my students increases exponentially with the number of assignments due. I had two dead grandparents today. Guess what? There was a paper due. Students come to me and say "I haven't been in class the last couple of weeks because I've had a death in the family" and I say" ... oh yeah?" not in exactly

Comments

[pc123]

Isn't it amazing how people will ALWAYS take advantage if you let them??!?!?!?!

[intertext]

What annoys me is that if someone just came to me and said "hey, I have three other papers due, and I'm having trouble getting this one done; can I have an extra day?" I would say yes, probably. But when they lie, I get less and less sympathetic, and it makes _everyone_ seem less credible, which is really unfortunate. What if someone genuinely DID have a death in the family - all these invented ones mean that someone might get less sympathy for a real family emergency!

[lidocafe]

[intertext]

I had one student tell me she had _three_ grandparents die in one term. I realize that this is not impossible, but it is statistically unlikely.

[gillo]

I get an astonishing number of hard disk crashes and faulty printers.

Oddly, dogs no longer eat homework as they did twenty years ago.

[intertext]

Yes, it's funny how in all the years I've been using a computer I've only once actually lost data to a crash. It's astonishing how often it happens to my students. Also laptops get stolen with amazing frequency right around the time papers are due.

[gillo]

It's probably part of the great conspiracy. Laptops are stolen, work is downloaded and sold on the internet or eBay and thus plagiarism occurs with no volition of the original writers...

[lidocafe]