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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Category: Personal
Posted on: December 13, 2007 11:56 AM, by PZ Myers
My last class for the semester is over as of this minute. All that's left is to proctor one final exam, and then…the horror of grading. Exams and more exams and term papers and lab reports, all to be done next week.
I guess I can't quite celebrate freedom just yet. But I will soon enough. I'll probably get wild and read a book or something.
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Comments
Tomorrow is my big day of grading work and getting everything ready for the end stretch. An exam (thank the administration for graders) on Tuesday, and Research reports due for another class that day. Then finishing grading and done.
Today, we're expecting a snow storm, so I'm staying at home. Just got back from the grocery store and going to can some soup. Also dealing with a cat who snapped off a large part of one of her teeth today, but doesn't seem to notice.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 13, 2007 12:34 PM
and I thought this was gonna be about Lord of the Rings......
Posted by: terry | December 13, 2007 12:34 PM
A book to read:
"Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Emilie du Chatelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings, Seditious Verse, and the Birth of the Modern World" by David Bodanis
Posted by: Hank Fox | December 13, 2007 12:36 PM
Oh, wait, that's Frodo....d'oh!
Posted by: terry | December 13, 2007 12:36 PM
Of course you can't have freedom. Didn't you hear Huckabee say that it requires faith?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 13, 2007 12:39 PM
Sorry, meant Romney. Having trouble keeping my mental cases straight.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 13, 2007 12:40 PM
Sorry, meant Romney. Having trouble keeping my mental cases straight.
Willard is the one whose hair doesn't move.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 13, 2007 12:42 PM
Why is grading so bad, PZ? Do your students think that 1/4 is an integer?
Posted by: valhar2000 | December 13, 2007 12:58 PM
Ah, the grading - my sympathies.
But it's not the last stage of the semester, you know. After the grading comes... the weeping.
Next time I'm writing into the syllabus that I can dock marks for weeping.
(Actually, I'm not as callous as that. But... sigh.)
Posted by: Mister Troll | December 13, 2007 1:30 PM
We are all going through this right now. It seems the period in the semester when we absolutely need to do continuous work is the period where we do not want to do it. My department here seems to be full of such ennui.
Posted by: thadd | December 13, 2007 1:54 PM
Don't you have TAs to do that for you?
Isn't that, you know, the whole point of having graduate programs?
Posted by: J Daley | December 13, 2007 1:58 PM
Did I mention soup?
Posted by: MAJeff | December 13, 2007 5:20 PM
Book?
[says the guy who still has to proctor 5 exams and grade all of them...]
Posted by: dogmeatib | December 13, 2007 5:47 PM
Ah yes, using the graduates to do grading. When I was a teaching fellow on a 9month contract we were expected to do marking (grading in the English speaking world) AFTER our contracts had ended. Heh, it was something else to do to put off getting my PhD finished.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | December 14, 2007 7:39 AM
I finished all my grading and turned in final grades just in time to get hit with a bad case of flu. If only I had remembered to get a flu shot (or loved me some Jesus)! Oh well.
Posted by: vjack | December 14, 2007 8:10 AM
Sorry to hear that vjack. At the end of my PhD I had a hellish week with the flu, I could not give in to it. Had to dose myself to the eyeballs. I had two Postdoc funding applications to do on short notice (my potential bosses had been slow with the details) and my wife had just been told she needed an operation so we had to arrange for the kids to go to the grandparents 200miles away. Not a time I look back at with fondness.
I know it's hard, but the studies show paracetamol prolongs the duration of colds and flu. And if you must take something at night, check it isn't dosed with lots of caffeine, so many are. Sleep is the great healer.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | December 14, 2007 8:39 AM
Well, if you can't have freedom, maybe you could eat some Freedo's during the grading?
Posted by: Wilson Fowlie | December 14, 2007 10:30 AM
Three D's for upperclassman living too high.
C's for undergrads, lost too far from home.
Nine B's for for pupils asking 'Why?'
One A for the graduate student in his lab of stone. (safety)
One grad to bring them all.
One grad to guide them.
One grad to teach them all, and in science methods bind them,
To the lamp of knowledge where no shadows lie.
(With countless apologies). I have six more tests and three insect collections to grade.
Posted by: mothra | December 14, 2007 3:54 PM
Just turned in my last grades! Now I can start figuring out what books to order for my spring class. I teach a freshman STS, and decided to try disease as a theme. Urgh.
Posted by: Carlie | December 14, 2007 4:54 PM
Freedo, Frodo's lesser-known younger brother. Sorry. Couldn't resist. Just spent 3 hours sitting with a friend in the ER and the booze just kicked in...
Posted by: Robert G. | December 18, 2007 2:16 AM