Thursday, December 16, 2010

In which I don't feel like grading finals...

and I am in the midst of having a cold. We have progressed from scratchy throat to bad sore throat and coughing up nasty stuff. Blah. I should drink some tea and honey, but I think I have one packet of hot chocolate left. I might make that instead, even though it won't make my throat feel as good.

I'm watching those "buy a home! now!" shows, but they are nowhere near as fun to watch as the "I'm going to make millions by flipping a house even though I don't know the first thing about construction!" shows ---- the ones where they crash and burn and suddenly have no money and a white elephant house on their hands. Yeah, I go by the shadenfreude model of tv entertainment. I have my limits, though: I see that "Jackass" is back on, but will have nothing to do with that one.

The home-buying shows don't make me want to buy a house, but they do make me want to illegally paint my place. At least I am lazy --- that will keep me out of trouble. Renovation trouble, at least --- I have grading laziness as well. I should get on that.

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See me not getting on that? Ah well. The finals will get better if I wait until tomorrow, right? Once they are aged they will be better quality? I can hope.

I had a couple nice comments on the lit finals, thanking me for the class and saying they enjoyed it. One person wrote that he couldn't say everything about Evil Poet because there was so much in the language and Evil Poet was so cool! And another person wrote that he really hated Evil Poet but that I made him like the Evil! Which is awesome in multiple ways, because, as you can tell from the name, I actually don't like Evil Poet much. I managed to find things I liked about Evil Poet and came to actually kinda like the poetry --- and I must have hidden the dislike well, and really "sell" what I did find, which is cool. And the grades were much more weighted around the C range, which made me feel much more confident. And the really super low Fs were the same people as last time, which makes me think it is about them, not me.

And I looked on the wiki and all the places I did manage to apply to --- remember that I got out the Nov. 1 deadlines but not much after that, I was so bogged down --- have contacted people for MLA. So now I am considering switching my plane ticket --- either to hang out with my fam instead or to come back here early. I could hang out, plan my classes at leisure, and I am already worried about leaving my cats for so long (with a pet-watcher, but still). But I am torn. I know many many of my friends from over the years will be at MLA, since it is in California. I would like to see people. Eh. Still pondering that whole thing.

What sort of winter break plans do people have? Any suggestions for fun things I should do? Good movie suggestions etc.?

4 comments:

Bardiac said...

I'm sorry about the bad MLA news. I hope the exams age well tonight.

Shane in SLC said...

Ditto Bardiac.

This is the only time of the semester that I'm not a horrible procrastinator when it comes to grading papers, because I know those papers are the only thing standing between me and ... well... the 50 non-teaching-related things I've been putting off until the end of the semester. And sleeping.

127 Hours is way intense; I recommend it, but not if you're squeamish.

SEK said...

What is it about the end of the quarter and the complete destruction of our immune systems? (I chalked up the fact that I was, essentially, sick this entire quarter to an increased disease vector: teaching 1,917 students instead of 64 means the likelihood of my coming into contact with something my system said, "Why hello, who are you?" increased exponentially.) But yes, more sympathy about the MLA, but should you come, I know some killer ... well, I did strand the President after he kept me out all night, so maybe he owes me an invite +however-many-I-want to something awesome?

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

I'm still waiting for wiki news on a couple of jobs. But next week, surely, is THE week, right? Then again, I think I have better chances at two jobs that have post-MLA deadlines. We'll see.

I don't know... if you don't have to go to MLA, then maybe skip it. It's expensive, and nerve-wracking to be around all those black suits.