Saturday, May 28, 2005

Op-Eds and Apricots and Emails, Oh My!

First off, there's more hand-wringing about the state and funding of K-12 in the editorial pages of the now not-so-grey Grey Lady. Enjoy the op-ed pages while you can, they're going pay-only soon.

Apricots have just come in the local megaconglomocorp grocery store. I was very stoked. I bought a lot. I have to admit I’m a bit underwhelmed. Ok, granted, the first one I had was tainted by toothpaste, but number two, with my palette suitably cleansed by a delicate glass of ’05 tap water, was ‘eh.’ Maybe I’m just asking too much of my apricot. Cherries should be coming in soon. Maybe I’ll fare better there.

On the plus side, I’m nearly done with the paper grading, which means I’ve only got three or four other big projects due in the next couple of weeks.

The truly sad part about that is that I’ve already received two of the standard ‘the class is ending and my grade stinks, please save me’ emails. I really don’t know what to do about those. I mean, sure I’ll do what I can to help out, but if you look at their grades and see that it is mathematically impossible for them to pass, or get the grade they need to please the parents, or get into grad school, or stay on the team or whatever, there’s really not much I can do. I always email back and try to give them a fair explanation of their chances to get ‘the grade,’ but I assume they can do the math just as easily as I can. What they’re really asking for is some kind of extra credit, or a curve or some other kind of ‘help.’ Yeesh.

1 comment:

jayfish said...

your fruit problem stems (haha, get it?) from buying at the wrong place. try a farmers market, the flavor will increase ten-fold.