Classes aren't quite over, but I gave my last lecture for the fall 2007 semester today. I still have a discussion session, a lab, and an exam to give, but it's still something of a landmark in the trajectory of the term. No more lecture prep! No more daily theatrical performances! What's left is more like friendly conversation and accounting.
I have this six-pack of homebrew from Dave Puskala waiting for me in the refrigerator at home…I'm opening one tonight.
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I just gave the last exam of my last class of this semester. No more lecture prep, no more lectures, just a stack of grading that I have to finish by Friday (I do have one final exam to give, but it's optional—the score they get on it replaces the lowest exam score of the term—and I expect only…
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It's that time of year again, when I start thinking about my fall term classes. I would really prefer to put it off for another couple of weeks, and I will put off spending much time on class prep in favor of finishing up some paper-writing and other things, but when the calendar turns to August, I…
Sciencewoman says: Some of readers have been wondering about what life is like for those jobs at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs). Alice and I are indubitably unqualified to answer that question, so Kim Hannula of "All of my faults are stress related..." graciously offered to provide…
Good for you.
;-)
Do you folk get New Glarus on your side of Minnesota? It's brewed in Wisconsin(*hiss!*) but it's really good.
Good to hear, PZ. For my part? I've got one last exam in about an hour and a half - While I've little appreciable leeway in terms of marks, it's open book and the review I took notes for was quite thorough. So if I don't actually seize up in panic on the test room floor, I should be alright.
But enough about me...
Shoot, I am actually spending my day today starting my prep for NEXT semester.
Last class period was yesterday. One of my classes is working on their research projects so I agreed to hold special office hours today. Two hours and ten minutes in and we have zero students making an appearance thus far.
Puskala? Sounds like a positively Finnish last name. Bet he has a Sauna as well.
"...zero students making an appearance thus far."
I'd guess that the probability of a large crowd arriving increases as t approaches t(dealine).
Prep? Oh, common, PZ, we are not children.
Saving the other five beers for when the grading starts?
I'd guess that the probability of a large crowd arriving increases as t approaches t(dealine).
Then they'll be S.O.L. Office hours today and tomorrow; project due next Tuesday and I'm not on campus again until then :)
Occasionally I see a story and think "gee, I wonder what the folks at Pharyngula would say about that." Sometimes I get lucky, and PZ blogs on the issue, or on something plausibly related, and I get to ask my question. Sometimes, though, I just get frustrated.
Since this is about as close to an open thread as this place ever gets, I thought I'd just rudely barge into it and ask for comments about this report of a study purporting to show that human evolution is getting faster over time, not slower.
It's one of those stories that I find fascinating, but whose plausibility I'm completely unqualified to evaluate. How lucky that I know a community of folks who are qulified, no?
"Prep? Oh, common, PZ, we are not children."
Darn right. Professors only work six hours a week, PZ. David Horowitz said so!
It's finals week here, I gave my last lecture seven days ago. To quote mine a classic Star Trek- "only one last duty to perform."
I think my classes end tomorrow, but I still have an NSF proposal, a paper, and two exams. I am envious of people who are already done.
Bill Dauphin @ #11: The Science Daily version seems to indicate that human evolution isn't necessarily increasing over time, it's just at an elevated rate right now while the effects of suddenly being exposed to the entire planet shake themselves out.
Trip:
Thanks for the response. It's funny how different popular articles about the same scientific study can give the subject different spins, isn't it. But the underlying study seems to be respectable, "real" science? That's what I was really trying to confirm.
-Bill
Nah, finals are next week. It's "study time" this week. But, I'm teaching a couple new courses next semester and I've got to design them. Holidays? I'll be ready to have a few moments of time 0ff during Festivus!