The disappointment of giving someone a barely passing grade when you know they can do better, but they didn't even try to answer half the questions on your test.

...

And that's how I know that I don't like to see people give up.

Maybe I just miss travelling abroad, but, when covid is over, can we normalize occasionally teaching classes online because there's a really interesting conference in a really interesting place or something? I mean, the technology is here, so can I just go visit a collegue in Hongkong and teach my classes online while I'm away? 

I do like grading tests on paper better than on the screen, but, damn, there sure are a lot of students in my groups this year with similar names and illegible handwriting... 

Me at 7 a.m.: I really need to start going to bed earlier.
Me at 2 p.m.: I'll finish grading those tests today...
Me at 5 p.m.: I'll do it later...
Me at 8 p.m.: I'll do it later...
Me at 11 p.m.: I really need to grade those tests. I'll just do a few before bed...
Me at 2 a.m.: Only three left. Might as well finish it tonight...

Aaand my work email is acting up again. I'm supposed to be sending my students their tests right now. It just logged me out in the middle of sending one and it took me a few minutes to get back in. This is the single worst moment for this crap in months ( Read more... )

Since I can't watch my students write their test, you'd think I could just email them the questions and go back to sleep. Nope. I need to be on standby in case there's a problem. I'd kinda hoped to get around that by telling them that if I accidentally make a problem impossible to solve, they get 100% for explaining why it's impossible (and then I ( Read more... )

I'm kinda getting used to teaching online now. It's not that bad. Weird sometimes, but not bad, for the most part. Except there's a problem with the university website right now. And it's the worst possible time for that ( Read more... )

Okay, so now it turns out all my classes are actually gonna be online, starting next week. Well, the good news is  at least I can sleep nearly an hour longer on those two days when my classes are way too early in the morning. But why did I have to learn this from my students? Shouldn't someone email me about it before the classes started or

Organized an online meeting with my students again, but this time nobody showed up. Even though one of them emailed me yesterday to tell me he would like to discuss some problems ( Read more... )

Me the night before giving a talk at a conference, in front of a hundred professors, some of whom wrote the books I learned this stuff from: No problem. I got this.

Me the night before teaching a class: Ohshitohshitohshit, what if I screw up somehow?!

Me in the middle of class: Ohh, I've just had a great idea, so let's forget the detailed plan ( Read more... )