How's your week going?

It's finals week here. My brain hurts, and I'm on what is reputed to be the easier side of the student-professor divide, so I have great empathy for my students at the moment. (At least, for the ones who aren't trying to put one over on me.)

In the last week, I have:

  • Conducted the last class meeting of the term for each of my courses.
  • Been presented with a pair of foosballs (because the canonical billiard balls are pricy) by my graduate seminar on causation.
  • Marked a whole mess of research assignments.
  • Noticed that a non-negligible number of students simply didn't do the research assignment (despite the fact that it accounts for 15% of the final grade).
  • Graded a whole mess of extra-credit assignments, while muttering to myself that my sympathy seems always to act in the direction of increasing the amount of grading I have to do.
  • Written a final exam.
  • Scheduled a final exam grading party with my grader extraordinaire.
  • Read and commented on a pile of drafts of papers for my graduate seminar.
  • Conducted 6 extra office hours.
  • Agreed to become an associate director of an institue on whose governing board I already serve, with the assurance that this "promotion" will not necessitate any more work for the institute than I'm doing already.
  • Transacted holiday-related commerce. (Can I just say, for situations where one is expected to come up with eight days of gifts for two children, that pretty rocks and minerals with individual "information" cards -- of the sort one might find in a museum gift shop -- are the best thing ever?)
  • Made two trips to the post office to ship packages.

In the next 24 hours or so, I must:

  • Conduct two more office hours. -- DONE
  • Grade many more papers.
  • Photocopy the final exam I wrote (making the necessary sacrifices of cash, chocolate, and untenured faculty members to the gods of the photocopier). -- DONE
  • Compute presentation grades for my graduate seminar. -- DONE
  • Compute participation grades for all my classes.
  • Administer final exams.
  • Locate a good source of take-away pizza for the grading party. -- DONE
  • Grade final exams.
  • Transact some more holiday-related commerce.
  • Possibly make another trip to the post office.
  • Construct a web page for a course I'll be teaching in the spring but that I haven't taught since Fall 2002 (at which point I wasn't yet constructing web pages for each of my courses).

So, what's doing with you?

More like this

Me? I'm just reading ScienceBlogs. This entry's made me tired, so I think I'll go take a nap.

By Scott Simmons (not verified) on 13 Dec 2006 #permalink

Phew. I was feeling sorry for myself, but now I feel pretty good! (I have finished off a personal statement, sent off PhD apps, finalized my thesis and uploaded it to my school for publication, continued to work my day job 8 hours a day, done some Christmas shopping.) All I have to do is finish a 15 page paper, a bit more shopping, mail off writing samples, and brace for my parent's impending visit since I graduate Saturday.

Yeah... a pretty small list in comparison. Thanks!

Agreed to become an associate director of an institue on whose governing board I already serve, with the assurance that this "promotion" will not necessitate any more work for the institute than I'm doing already.

Ho, ho, ho, SUCKER!

OOps. Sorry.

This week hasn't been too bad for me; previous weeks were worse. I will have a million finals to grade, but that's not so bad. The biggest thing is that the AAS meeting is coming up, and my grad student is still working on her poster-- and me with her.

-Rob

If you're looking for something to take your mind off of the hectic pace for a while, the following link has a great conversation regarding what happens when people drag assumptions into science as well as poorly worded requirements in design (which is what got my attention).

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/11/airplanetreadmill_pr.html

My favorite "finals week activity" was defending to two students why they couldn't take the lab exams three weeks after all of their classmates took it, just because they realized now that they never showed up for class that week. Whew. Ten minutes each, and as emotionally draining as grading 100 exams.