Best laid plans

I keep thinking of Eddie Izzard and his whole bit about the Robert Burns lines, "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agly," and Izzard wondering what the mouse plans might be. All I can say is that the mice probably plan better than I do.

I did get all the proposals marked in time for the various classes today, and I did get some miscellaneous bits of homework that had been floating around marked and returned. I had forgotten that I never marked second papers for the Native American Lit students, as most of them had neglected to attach their sources (a requirement), but the only reason there's any concern about that is that I allow students to revise for a better grade. So I told the students they could take until the last day of the semester to turn in revisions. There are only five students left--and one of those is pretty iffy (if he misses class again, even if he's late, he's out)--so this is an easy offer to make. The last day of their class is the Thursday of the last full week, but I still will be here on the Monday finishing up, so I have time to read any revisions and crunch the numbers with no problem.

In terms of student interactions, the student who had ignored the "absolutely no late proposals" edict did turn in her proposal yesterday and did show up for class today. I told her she could withdraw, but she couldn't finish the class. I felt bad about it, and I'm not entirely persuaded I handled the situation as well as I might have: I keep wondering if there might be some teaching moment I missed. But really, I felt the most important lesson I could teach her is that, in the adult world, "I'm sorry; I was irresponsible" butters no parsnips. I gave her several chances to turn in the work in a way that would have avoided the problem, but she didn't take any of them--and it seemed like it was time for her to learn that eventually the axe truly will fall, no matter how contrite one may be.

Another student plagiarized portions of his proposal--and he'd plagiarized before. I don't think he's trying to pull anything off: I think he's just too dim to understand what he's doing wrong. I told him today that he has failed the class. Period. He didn't even quite understand that, but he did leave.

Another student also didn't seem to believe me when I said "proposals will not be accepted late for any reason whatsoever": he turned his in late with no explanation and no apology. I just sent him an e-mail informing him that he can withdraw or he can fail, period. It will be interesting to see if he checks his e-mail.

Several students didn't show up to class to find out if their proposals passed. (They didn't.) I've sent them e-mails letting them know that they need to revise and that their proposals are on my office door, along with very clear directions about what needs to be done.

On a brighter note, I got a revised proposal already from a student in the M/W 102 class. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet and am on the fence about whether to do that tonight or tomorrow. I'm leaning toward tomorrow, since I have to be here anyway.

And in terms of those agly plans, I was going to try to work tonight after class--write up an observation at least, or start on my year-end evaluation--but no. Even though I only taught two days this week, I'm as tired at the end of a Thursday as I usually am after a full week, and I have to be back here at 9:00 tomorrow morning for a professional development day. Ed asked what the topic was: I had to confess I don't remember. It's just one of those things we're supposed to do on occasion, so I'm doing it. (I am not doing so well with committee meetings: I missed college-wide assessment again on Tuesday, and I haven't even checked my calendar to see if I missed anything today. I don't think so, but I can't be sure.)

And now we're down to two weeks and one day left of this semester. Weird as hell. And Jesus, to I have a lot of work to get done in those two weeks. Fling your hands in the air and scream!