Might as well revert to the old blog title

Seems like, for the foreseeable future anyway, this is going to be a blog that is 99.9% about students. Which is OK, of course; it just isn't what the title might lead a new reader to expect.

But about the students:

Imagine my utter astonishment when Little Boopsie--the one who tried to join the online office hour, gave up; submitted a quiz and started another, gave up, otherwise has been AWOL--submitted her essay, two days late, and sent me two very chipper emails, one saying, "Oh, oops, I forgot my works cited page!" and the next saying "Oh, sorry, sent you the wrong works cited page; here's the right one!"

OK, so clearly she understands at least that emails work in one direction, but I emailed back saying the professorial equivalent of "What the fuck??" and of course have heard absolutely nothing back. The letter that was mailed should arrive at her house any day now--assuming she still lives at the address she has on file, which may be a huge assumption.

I'll give her some feedback on her essay--once I finish with everyone else. I got another late submission, too, from a student who emailed on Sunday to ask where he could find the article for the essay (and to whom the answer was, "You need to do research; I suggest you read the essay assignment"). So now I've gotten submissions from ten of thirteen, but not from one of the students who I thought was among the best.

And what with one thing and another, I haven't gotten everything marked--and I'm going to send everything back all at once, to sort of level the playing field as it were: no one gets extra days to work on the revision--so even though there are only two more (and Boopsie's), I have to really get rolling tomorrow morning and crank fast, so I can at least start on the Met project and see how long that will take.

Of course, while I focus on grading essays, I'm falling way the hell behind on everything else I need to mark for them, so even when I finish grading essays and get the Met project returned, I'm still going to have a bolus of work that needs doing.

Meanwhile, Cathy offered me a summer section of Native American Lit. Online courses in the summer run ten weeks, not four like the FTF versions, so that removed one objection, and I confess I'm kinda tempted--that whole "I need money" thing--but I'd have to start over from zero, as the textbook I used to use is insanely expensive new, and there are problems with students getting it on time if they get it used, and I used to use a lot of handouts, so I'd have to think of something else to do ... and I think I just talked myself out of it. I do love the course, but I haven't taught it in seven years, and there's just an awful lot to convey if I'm going to teach it right. The problems go way beyond the textbook. I'll think about it over night (the idea of the money really is appealing), but it would be an astronomical amount of work to get it up and rolling. I don't think an online version of the class has ever existed, either, so I couldn't even raid what someone else has done (and actually, full-time faculty get paid a stipend to put together an online course when it's never been taught online before, so I'd kinda be giving NCC my work for free, which I don't much want to do).

But now, even though the sun is still up, as far as I'm concerned, the curtain has descended on the day, and I'm packing it in. I thought I might do a little research into possible textbooks for the Native American Lit class, just to see how possible it might be to throw something together, but if I start on that, the wind-down process will be delayed even further, and I would like to try to make an early night of it. I expect I'll touch base tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if I get any more late essays (tonight midnight is the absolute deadline), and to see if I hear from Boopsie. We'll see.