I love 'em all ... well, except one or two

We had class outside today, because the weather is (finally) gorgeous. We'll do the same on Thursday, weather permitting (it's supposed to be even warmer)--but the students realized, after today, that sitting on the grass isn't as comfortable as sitting on benches, so we're moving the location, but not by far.

The conversation was, for the most part, good, though a couple of the better students were rather mute today (and behind with their notes, dammit all to hell). But ... well, we're grinding toward the end, and everyone is running out of gas.

One student withdrew--finally. He should have done so about the third week. I've known since then that he simply couldn't hack it--but, god love him, he kept trying. Another has been gone enough hat I thought she'd disappeared, and she should withdraw; I hope she does. She's missing almost all her work, and she's been absent eight times (two over the stated limit; I can be flexible about that for students who are otherwise doing well, but not for someone who is patently out of her depth).

And then there's the student who was in one of my classes some time back. I'm about to throttle her. Her essay made no references to the actual novel itself; she used a cheater site's summary of the novel as "support" for her points. She did put the cheater site information in quotation marks (though she didn't cite it), but using it instead of using her own understanding of the novel? No, sorry: that's not a passing attempt. And today she submitted a bunch of notes--on Atwood's The Year of the Flood, which we finished reading weeks ago. Nothing on what we're actually reading now.

She wants to meet with me--and when I told her she'd have to email me to propose possible meeting times, and I'd have to see what would work with my schedule, she had the running, leaping gall to say, "Check your email a lot, OK? Because I'm maybe going to take off from work, so I need to know right away..." because, of course, it's my job to be available whenever she can fit me into her schedule.

But I'm not testy about it or anything.

I'm also not entirely happy that I didn't quite get their essays graded--and instead of returning all but one of them today, I opted to keep everything, including not only the essays but their revised first essays and any notes I've collected recently, in the perhaps wild hope that I can get it all back to them on Thursday.

And there's also all the work from the Nature in Lit that needs grading. God knows when I'll get to that.

I also have to do an assessment thingy for the essays for both lit classes. (Don't ask.) I'm late with that--and will be even later. Paul reported that things were sort of dead in Advisement today, but I know better than to hope the same will be true tomorrow. And I have to meet Cathy between Advisement and my class; I have an after-work appointment; and I have to do a presentation to the Future Teachers' Club on Thursday, on top of which I'll be seeing students back-to-back in my seminar and office hours on Thursday. When will I grade stuff? Well, I don't know. But I will. One way or another. Not much choice there. I may have to bail on Advisement tomorrow, just to be sure I have the time. I don't want to--not only because it is potentially busy these days but also because I've missed a lot of days--but it looks like that might be the only place where I can carve out the time I need. I'll mull it over tonight and see where I am with it all tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I am officially toast for this evening. It's time to wobble off to my car and drive carefully home. I do want to go on record with my appreciation of the lengthening days: it's rather wonderful to be going home while it's still light. And the end of semester is nigh. Time marches onward, and sometimes, that's a wonderful thing.