and now the doing nothing may commence

[lunabee34]

1. Josh's sister is in the hospital; she had surgery for appendicitis yesterday. Supposedly there's no genetic component to appendicitis, but I call shenanigans; everyone in Josh's immediate family and some of his extended family have had their appendixes removed. She's doing well.

2. Emma had her second vaccination a week ago with no adverse effects except being tired. One more week, and we are having our fully vaccinated friends over for dinner!

3. I am done for the semester. Everything is graded, grades are turned in, and all the various administrative paperwork bullshit submitted. Yay!

4. It looks like I am not going to teach this summer; my class only has four students in it, and I don't think they'll let it run with that few. I hope I pick up a few more students. I can't remember if I taught the summer Fiona was born; I think I didn't. So that and this summer will be the only semesters in 13 years that I haven't taught if this class doesn't make.

5. Y'all, I had a kid plagiarize three motherfucking times in my class this semester. THREE TIMES! The times I have had the same student plagiarize twice in the same class are so vanishingly small that I can't even remember it happening. Three times is out of this world. He never admitted that he did anything wrong, either; he tried to blame it on me having a personal problem with him or that I'm prejudiced. Oh, yes, when I pointed out that you wrote your lit response (no research, 500 words, teensy analysis of assigned reading--so extremely low stakes and minimal effort assignment) on a text that we didn't read and that isn't in your textbook or when I pointed out that Turnitin had highlighted a bunch of text you copied from a website, that was surely evidence of me being out to get you. *headdesk* I am so glad to be seeing the back of this class.

6.

Amelia Bedelia Unleashed by Herman Parish

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Very cute. The kiddo's favorite humor right now is the pun, so these books go over very well.

Amelia Bedelia names her dog Finally. :)



View all my reviews

Comments

[oracne]

I am so excited for your dinner plans!

[lunabee34]

Me too!

It will be so nice to visit with people again.

[aphrodite_mine]

That plagiarizing kid sounds like a real winner!

How are you feeling about potentially having no summer class? Could it end up being a blessing?

[lunabee34]

I hope my class makes because Emma will be starting college in the fall, and I don't want to have to dip too much into our savings to pay for summer when we'll need that to pay for school.

But I am totally guiltily looking forward to not teaching. LOL Like a lot.

[aphrodite_mine]

The economics of it are super valid.

But hopefully either way it is an awesome summer. :)

[lunabee34]

Thank you.

I am ready to relax!

[zulu]

Hooray, grades are in, always the best part of the semester!

I hope you have a lovely vaccinated dinner in a week!

[lunabee34]

I know! I love it when it's over. LOL

Thank you!

[gloss]

Such a great list of wonderful things! (I hope the summer teaching works out, one way or the other, though.)

[lunabee34]

I am prepared to relax. There have been many summers when Josh's class didn't make and he didn't teach, so I'll be the one chilling this time around. LOL

[chelseagirl]

Sorry to hear about Josh's sister, congrats on being ALL DONE!, and enjoy having the summer off. I was actually kind of hoping my summer class wouldn't make, because it filled a lot more slowly than it usually does. Not that the money won't come in handy, but I need some time to really focus on other things. Now I'm hoping it stays small, although since it's Summer II, it could keep growing . . .

[lunabee34]

She is home from the hospital and doing great.

I hear you. I am secretly hoping I don't have to teach even though I feel guilty for hoping it. LOL Crossing fingers yours stays small!

[spikedluv]

Yay for being done and dinner plans! I hope your summer works out the way you really want it to. *g*

[lunabee34]

Me too! I am going to read and read and lay around and read. There's a theme.

[princessofgeeks]

\o/

Hope your SIL does well!

[lunabee34]

Thank you!! She is home from the hospital and doing well.

[amejisuto]

I'm sorry about Josh's sister. I hope she gets better soon!

Yay for dinner parties! I bet you're looking forward to socializing!

I'm glad you're done for the summer. Sounds like that one kid thinks he's special. He'll do it with another professor and it'll go on his record hopefully.

And it sounds like you may have too much time on your hands this summer. Maybe you could write a book about poetry or something. That'll keep you busy.

Happy May!

[lunabee34]

Oh yes. It is now engraven upon his record. *washes hands of it*

His sister is feeling much better. I'm glad.

I hope I will get writing done this summer. It certainly a goal. Although it might end up being academic writing rather than fiction/poetry.

[amejisuto]

You're good at both, academic and poetry!

[lunabee34]

Awwww. *blushes*

[independence1776]

Congrats on being done!

[lunabee34]

Thank you! Knowing that I have nothing to do tomorrow but pay some bills is a lovely feeling.

[archersangel]

RE #1: hope she continues to to well.

RE #2: yay for future dinner plans! i had my first vaccination shot this week.

RE #5; that guy has some nerve.

[lunabee34]

Thank you! She is doing really well.

Yay for vaccination. I am so happy for you.

He has so much nerve. It was, frankly, unbelievably brazen. LOL

[lyr]

5) Ugh, I know what you mean. I had a kid do it five times in a row once, with me catching her and failing her every time. And yet she still stormed out of class every time, furiously snarking that her former teachers had all supported her.

[lunabee34]

It's just such baffling behavior. These kids drive me nuts sometimes!!

Girl, I forgot your birthday! I had a note to message you and everything.

I hope you had a fabulous day. *hugs*

[lyr]

Thanks, hon! It was pretty good for a work day. *hugs*

[corvidology]

MG once had a student who was barely literate turn in an end of the semester that had words like 'juxtaposition' in it, used correctly.

That's the word that sticks in my mind because MG asked the student to explain it to him and he said he couldn't because the team mate who'd wrote the paper for him hadn't explained any of it to him!

[lunabee34]

*dies laughing*

In the days before internet searches and turnitin, that was routinely the way of figuring out if a kid had plagiarized. I remember asking this one girl to explain her paper to me, and she couldn't, and finally, she exclaimed that she'd just taken too many drugs when she wrote it and couldn't possibly explain what she meant now.

[timespirt]

kid plagiarize...so does he get away with it or does he get an F...LOL

I'm fully vaccinated as well and so glad it's over. I doubt life will return to normal any day soon though.

Glad your husbands sister is OK.

"HUGS"

[lunabee34]

He does not get away with it! LOL

Full vaccination high five*

*hugs*

[timespirt]

"HUGS"

I can't fathom the type of person he will grow up to be if he's cheating on his work.

[kat_lair]

Ughhhh plagiarism. What's the process you have for that? We do a kind of staged approach with the first being entirely educational with a chance to resubmit without penalty but second incident means resubmission with mark capped and further (or more serious) incidents get closer to disciplinary proceedings. The real problem of course isn't stupid copy-pasting from elsewhere but the essay mill work which is almost impossible to prove even though you know the student didn't write it themselves.

[lunabee34]

We are allowed to essentially decide as instructors what we want to do. There's a formal process with paperwork that you fill out with evidence, and etc.

We are encouraged to use the first time as a teaching experience, which is what I generally do. The student gets a zero at first, admits responsibility, and then I let them make it up for a D, and that's usually the end of it.

But if I wanted to, I could give them an F for the whole class. The student would have to accept or deny responsibility and then if denied, there would be a hearing of sorts to determine if they really did it.

If the kid who cheated 3 times wasn't getting a D in my class, I'd have gone the fail him route because no way should a kid that brazen pass the class.

[kat_lair]

That's interesting that there's that much discretion. I think we have that for the initial decision, like I tend to take the line that if there was attempt of referencing (e.g. the source but no quotation marks), it counts as poor referencing practice that results in lowered mark and strict feedback but not the plagiarism procedure. However, once plagiarism process is initiated, that's highly standardised and centralised.

[lunabee34]

Honestly I think there's so much discretion because they hope instructors will not want to fool with the long process and just stuck with minor penalties.