- Ten weekly quizzes, each of 5 short-paragraph-length identifications.
- Two map quizzes.
- Three 3-to-7 page essays.
- A long final.
My point is this: the best feelings in life have to do with relief. Not being in pain, not being stressed-out, not getting screwed over, all assuming the possibility of pain, stress, and screwed are very real possibilities in a given situation, these are a few of my favorite things. A comparable state of being is the satisfying knowledge that I have every right to do absolutely nothing useful. Being done is awesome.
* Made less lame by the free Thai lunch.
** Or, if you prefer, hot spreadsheet-on-spreadsheet action. Which is sexy in a Microsoft kind of way.
4 comments:
Ahh... the relief of finishing a giant wad of grading. It's rather like when that really painful leg cramp finally goes away. All you can do is lie there, panting and thanking the gods that it's over.
I think that the relief is not just mental, its also chemical (and this can be augmented chemically too). In that minute, hour, or day after you finish [x project] that has been hanging over you for [fill in amount of time here], you get to enjoy the release on many levels. I agree that is one of the best feelings. I'm hard up for some of that kind of relief. Thanks for reminding me I have that to look forward too and kudos on being done.
By the way, that is a ton of grading. How many students actually did all the work? (Here at Orange U., that workload would cause a walkout.)
Most did it all - if not, their grades show it. They were pretty pissed, but it was just under rebellion-inducing levels. I complain about them sometimes, but the UC to the SC students are actually pretty sharp, by and large.
That sounds like when I TA'ed my advisor's class, only she had a research paper thrown in there somewhere too. The midterm and the final were blue books and those sucked... trying to understand the handwriting combined with undergraduate thought processes was a bitch.
On the other hand, she was super organized and we had a fun grading session in the end. It was highly entertaining to watch someone for which I have such high respect decide grades either by 1) contemplating out loud whether that student really deserved the bump up or not ("she was lazy and didn't take my advice" "seems like he came to my lectures high") or 2) the penny method (I will show you when I return next year--it is quite clever).
Post a Comment