Well, I finished grading my remaining 15 essays today, with the exception of one essay that was missing page two. Actually, page 2 from a different writing project was there in place of page two of the essay. I’ve emailed the student to please email me the missing page so I can grade the essay. If she doesn’t by Friday, her grade’s going to suffer some. Anyway, I am now working on grading “form projects”. It’s actually relatively easier, in that grades are assigned mostly not on quality but on whether an attempt was made. Students who actually tried hard …
Month: December 2006
Merry Thing-Thing
To all, It’s the wee hours of Christmas Eve day, which is also Lime’s birthday. Lucky us, she managed to finagle a weekend off, so I’ll be busy for the next couple of days. Therefore, I’m wishing you all a happy thing-thing. Don’t eat too much things-things. I know I won’t.
Looks Like Arial
Stuff you maybe didn’t know about Helvetica and Arial. Via Goth House Parlor.
Three Cheers For Lime!
Well, those of you who know, know that Lime’s been hoping to get into a certain branch of medicine for the rest of her residency. There’s good news: she got the call today, and, well, she probably wouldn’t want me to say anything too explicit, but… if SARS broke out in Korea, or bird flu, or some other newfangled scary disease, she’d be among the people dealing with it. Think Outbreak. Except she’s much cuter than Dustin Hoffman ever was.
Just as Confusing In-Context
From an essay by a female student, on (I’m pretty sure she’s discussing) eating disorders: “In fact, the women are the ones only making the causing emotional problems.” And no, the context doesn’t really help much.
Tsotsi
This film was recommended by the other foreign professor in my department, who used in a course segment dealing with South Africa. My brief review, as usual crossposted to AllConsuming, is as follows: What happens when a petty thug performs a carjacking and discovers that there was a baby left in the car by the woman he shot? Great movie. I worried for about five seconds that this might turn out to be the South African version of Three Men and a Baby but in fact it turned out to be a brilliant and well-made film about the strange ways …
“The Wager”
I’m on a roll, I guess. After revising and expanding and basically rewriting most of Ogallala, I realized it was too long to send to the market I was hoping to send it to, and so I decided to rework another story I’d been saving up for criticism. Be warned, spoilers, so if you’re planning on critting it, read no farther.
Taking a Break From These Essays…
It never ceases to amaze me how many students outright ignore the comments I make on their essays, and fail to ask me about the comments during one-on-one meetings with me, or even just after class, even though I tell them they should do this. Anyway, I marked seven essays this evening, several of which were absolutely oustanding–including a highly impassioned plea for social justice and legal reform in the handling of trasngendered people in Korea (which got an A++ because, really, it’s almost pro-magazine quality in my opinion)–but the last few, they were almost demoralizing. I mean, no, not …
Dear Libya, Dear Bulgaria
UPDATE: 17 Dec. 2014: Turns out that, after years of torture and horror, they were actually set free: By the look of it from this detailed report, the whole proceedings seem to have been a big bread-and-circus for the paranoid masses… well, and a fundraising effort as well: On July 24, 2007—eight and a half years after their arrest on charges of intentionally infecting children with the HIV virus in a Libyan pediatric hospital—the six health professionals were freed from jail and immediately extradited to Bulgaria. Upon arrival in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, they were officially pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgi …
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Viewers fooled by ‘Belgium split’
Adrian at mssv posted a link to an interesting piece about a hoaxed new report of political secession in Belgium.