So, I "officially" declared this "Student Blooper Month" on Facebook, and I've tried to remember to post at least one blooper a day: I've been saving them for ages, and a lot are pretty hilarious.

I encountered a good one in an essay I graded today, and as Paul was also here working, I interrupted him to share it. That got us talking about bloopers--and I mentioned out loud the experience I had eons ago with encountering Richard Lederer's "Student Bloopers History of the World." I decided to google it, so I could share it with Paul--and in a very creepy moment, the minute I typed the word "Richard" into the Google search bar, the whole name and title appeared. I have done absolutely zero searches having anything to do with that on any of my devices, at home or on campus. I haven't written it anywhere. All I can think is that there is some kind of voice-recognition software in the computer and it heard me. Which really freaks me out. If the computer is listening, who else is? And who's keeping a file of everything I say?

Setting aside my tech paranoia, here's a link to the history. It is pretty hilarious, I have to say, and it holds up. I still laugh out loud at some of them.

https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~norman/Jokes-file/StudentBloopers.htm

The SF class went about as it's been going. Most of the student contributions came from three students--the same three who've been holding the rest of the class up pretty much all semester. A few other voices got into the mix, but if it weren't for those three, I think there would be 75 minutes of silence in the room. I don't know how much they're getting, or maybe more to the point how much they're missing, but they seem to be latched on well enough to go for the full ride. We'll see.

The best news of the day is that three students didn't submit their essays to Turnitin yesterday, so I was able to tell them that I won't have their essays ready for their conferences tomorrow--and in fact, there's no reason for them to come to their conferences, as there wouldn't be anything for us to talk about. Plus Cathy canceled P&B today, so that freed up a good chunk of time. And one sweet student--who just turned 17, so she's even younger than most--agreed to move her conference to Thursday. I think she's pinching another part of her life to do it, and last night I told her she didn't have to feel obligated--but she didn't tell me she wanted to keep the original time, so ... Thursday it is.

And for Thursday, only three students who have conferences have submitted essays.

In fact, of the students in the 5:00 class, a grand total of seven have submitted essays to Turnitin. Of course, they may still submit them at the last second today--or even try to submit them later than that, though I sent out an email saying that I won't mark anything that's submitted after Thursday.

And that made me realize that--once again--I have to rethink and rewrite the submission policy and late penalties.

On top of which, I'm fretting about whether to grade on a curve for the first time in my career. I'm right on the fence there. On the one hand, the students need a wake-up call. On the other, this is the first time in their lives, most of them, when they've had this kind of responsibility and need to be completely point-precise in following instructions. I don't know. If I have time to crunch most of the numbers before the last time I see them, I'll try to make a decision before our last class meeting, so I can let them know what I'm doing and why.

This only applies to the 101s--and it applies more to the 5:00 section than to the 2:00 section.

Well, decisions and indecisions. There will be time.

Two weeks. Well, two weeks and two days to the official last day. Paul panicked when I said that, but I'm weirdly blithe about what I still haven't done. I suppose the panic will hit eventually. It always does, and it always turns out to be needless. Here we go round the prickly pear.

And here I go out the door. Thank God tomorrow is another day, because this one is shot.