I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
March 07, 2012 - 10:29 a.m.
Today is National Procrastination Day and I'm doing a good job celebrating it. I got up early today and have wasted two hours.
I have not been sleeping well and that's seriously affected my productivity. Doing a crossword isn't productive but it illustrates how I've felt. When I tried to do the crossword on the subway I could only make it for about ten minutes before falling asleep. It's making it hard to get anything done. That being said I did manage to give my test yesterday. I did a good job and printed out the questions and graph paper and inserted them into the blue examination books. I always like to hand them out like that. Then when they are done I can say, "Fold everything up and put them back in the book just like when they were handed out." It always amazes me how difficult students find it to hand tests back if I'm not explicit. They'll just pile the graph on top of the booklet, without their name on it. If I say fold the test they'll fold I the long way so it is sticking out of the book. Some just stick it all in the book with everything hanging out everywhere. Do they think I'll fold it for them? Probably not. They aren't thinking at all.
I made this test incredibly short. There were 18 questions but so many involved little or no work. Some people finished in half an hour but some worked till the end. That just shows they were unprepared. Many didn't spend their time working on the problems but on trying to remember how to start the problems. Some didn't bother to learn the way of doing a problem in two seconds and instead did things with long roundabout methods. I repeatedly stressed, "This is the fast way of doing the problem. You have to learn it. You can't afford to reinvent the wheel every time you do a problem." So many students simply don't care about doing a good job. They would rather spend more time and struggle than attempt to learn something new. Their strategy is to learn as little as possible. There's a formula to find the equation of a line thought a given point with a given slope. I taught them the formula. I told them that's the form I want the answer in to not simplify. I gave them a handout problem set on it. I told them it's important. So of course many totally ignored and made no attempt to learn it.
I've complained a lot about the attitude of many of my students but one is leagues beyond anyone else. She is the one that said that she has no interest in learning that all she cares about is her grade. She doesn't make the connection that if she learns the material she'll get a good grade. What did she do on the test? She came 39 minutes late, worked on the test for 6 minutes, then left. Why is she bothering to show up at all?
One of the students spent most of her time just staring at me looking very sad. I felt that she wanted to talk to me and planned on approaching her afer the test. I didn't have to. She came up to me. She's a student I like as a person and early on in the semester I had hopes she'd be a good student but was led astray by the people she was sitting with. We talked and it was productive. She felt bad because she hadn't been making the effort and now it was hitting her. That's all I ever want. For the students to realize that it is their own responsibility and they can do something about it. She wants to turn over a new leaf. I told her that I'd help her catch up. She was grateful to me and I was grateful to her. She cared. She didn't make me feel I was talking to a wall. People screw up. I've screwed up. All you can do is do better in the future. I hope she'll be my teaching success story for the semester.
I had enough energy left after the test to make up a good answer key, one I can read and formatted to make grading easy. Then the fatigue hit me and I couldn't get any grading done. If I had tried I wouldn't have trusted myself to do a good job. I kept thinking I might be able to start but I couldn't. Last night I made the effort and went to bed earlier than I have, 12:30. I woke up a few times in the night and then was up by 7:30 in the morning. I probably got closer to six hours sleep than the seven and a half to eight that I prefer but hopefully I'll be able to get some grading done and answer my backlog of emails. No not get some grading done; grade the entire test. I should be able to do it as the questions are short.
Oh I tried something new for dinner yesterday. That's always important. I used the tandori spice on filet of chicken breast. It works great. The garlic ciabatta was wonderful. I'm going to have to buy ciabatta more often. It's the best bread to eat with olive oil.
This entire edition of Wise Madness is what I usually use as my introduction. When it's 919 words that makes it the entire edition. Now I'm off to make breakfast. I think it's an omelet day.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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Horvendile March 07, 2012
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