Sunday, April 19, 2009

Grading in the Sunporch

I was just thinking that academic types don't mention grading often enough, especially in late April. A measly 50% of tweets and status updates from my network of peers mention grading--astonishingly low!

Right now I'm in the sunporch, grading. I would post about this to my Twitter account, but for this I need more than 140 characters. It's a longer trip all the way around these ideas I'm having.

Here are a few of the grades FERPA will allow me to share:

• B- to my deteriorated spelling skills. Here I thought "sun porch" was one word.
• Make that a C+ because I had to look up "measly."
• F to the cooling fan on my five-year-old Vaio laptop because it sounds like a motorboat engine. All the time. The Family Finances Committee says my new home computer is on the list of "Things To Buy When In 2018 We Get These Student Loans Paid Off." Fie!, fiscal conservatives!
• C- to the rest of the laptop for getting me this far. I mean it: thanks!
• C to the unsightly water-stained hole in the ceiling above my head. The exterior was repaired; the interior left like a monument to water damage, intact.
• A to family, except, why is nobody home right now to nudge me through these fits of procrastination?
• C- to Yoki, the dog so conflicted as to whine when inside because he wants out and to whine outside because he wants in. Any more whining and both of us will be crying. The C- also goes for that smell.
• B+ to the bug carcasses in the shaded corner on the indoor/outdoor carpeting.
• A to temperatures adequate to warrant grading in the sun porch on a Sunday afternoon.

Posted by Derek Mueller at April 19, 2009 2:40 PM to Dry Ogre Chalking