Digital Analogue

On grades and procrastination

I submitted grades today at 10am. Then I amended one of my senior's grades, having realised that the final project was a tad (just a smidge!) harder than I estimated last week, and he really deserved to have that minus removed from his grade. Then I realised that one of the kids I thought was taking an incomplete, and for whom I'd thus submitted an F, was in fact not taking an incomplete. So I sat down and graded two homeworks and two projects, and submitted his revised grade, along with profuse apologies to the registrar's assistants, who by all indications have not yet begun to hate me. Which is fortuitous.

I still just don't understand people who completely fail to turn stuff in. Not missing a homework, God knows I did that myself often enough. But missing all of them? Or skipping a project? It's frustrating as a teacher to, on the one hand, see a student who is perfectly capable of doing good work, but just blows off so much work that their final grade plummets; or on the other hand, see a student who probably would be able to do it if they sat down and worked on the homework, ever, but don't, and therefore do very poorly on the few things they do attempt. But what can I do, other than send them the occasional reminder? I'm a terrible procrastinator myself, so I can understand where they're coming from, but I guess I'm better at pulling it out in the last moments (or perhaps just better at dealing with sleep deprivation---useful skill, that).

Anyway, I'm pretty loopy with sleep deprivation right now, what with having stayed up all night to finish grading final exams and projects in time for the 10am deadline this morning. (Did I mention I...? Yes, yes I did.) So now I will go to sleep. Well, after letting my dog out. I'll let my dog out, and then I'll go to sleep. After taking my contacts out. I'll let out the dog, take out my contacts, and then go to bed. And maybe laun---no! There is no third thing. Only the dog and the contacts. Now, where was I?

"I'm more in there if you s/wrong/distasteful/g." --Kevin Colby