Yes folks, it is that time of year again. Finals is upon us. I always feel weird saying that, shouldn't it be finals are upon us? But that is the thing about Finals. It has become a singular event of dread instead of a series of dreadful events--the importance of it has made it a singular noun instead of a plural noun. Sigh... This is the time of year when everyone begins to look harried and tired and a bit desperate.
I spent the beginning of this week correcting 600 papers before the final day of class so that my students could do final portfolios. Now I have a little break before those final portfolios come in on Monday and Wednesday. I have been spring cleaning and falling asleep in various places other than my bed. I have also been watching some great and not so great movies. Sigh...the world we live in today makes curiosity a dangerous thing. I am now returning to the two friend rule. I will only watch a movie if two trusted friends have already suggested it to me. With movies I don't have the cathartic option of throwing the disc across the room. That is what I do with books that I don't like. Discs break, they usually don't belong to me, and I probably shouldn't indulge in such violent outbreaks of emotion. :)
Little did I know that this would turn into a bitter diatribe about the decline of the media--but I needed to post. :) At the moment I am gearing up for summer block and moonlighting as a secretary at a title company. I am going to be writing again this summer, so I am preparing for that also. This week also brought that other plural noun that has reached the importance of a singular nouns: Taxes. Luckily I have a brilliant former accountant for a father who takes care of that kind of stuff for me. Though I must say, he was up until the wee hours filing too--that somehow is comforting. :) To celebrate I listened to "Tax Man" by the Beatles and watched "Stranger than Fiction" between grading 600 hundred papers. Sigh...again.
Did you know that the Elizabethans though that sighinig was a dangerous habit that expelled precious moist air from the body and thus contributing to the lack of blood in the heart--this could ultimately break the heart, literally. So becareful about sighing. Don't get out of humour because of singular nouns.
8 comments:
That would be sighing. not sighining. Sigh..
Here are some more plural/singular nouns:
physics, ethics, mathematics, the Phillipines.
Wow, that is a lot of papers. I can't imagine having to grade that many. Okay, I can imagine it, it's just not a pretty sight. I bet you never want to grade another paper again. I hope that the rest of school will go smoothly for you and that you will have a wonderful summer break. (Although you really don't get a break--just from school)
How did you have that many papers to grade in the first place???? I'm thinking that "The Other Provo University" must have english taught in auditoriums or something??
In my college english classes we only had maybe 25-30 students, and I don't imagine a teacher taught more than 5 or 6 classes, which should only be somewhere in the nieghborhood of 125-180 papers. Am I totally wrong on how it works, even here at USU? Or is there a more sinister work at hand...?
Are other teachers bullying you and making you grade their papers for them?!? If so, give us some names; Thad and I will come rough 'em up...well, mostly I'll just shout at them and throw stuff, while Thad charges at them while letting the lower half of his body go limp and dragging himself along with just his arms...it's rather terrifying to see him coming at you like that!
Here is how the math works. I have 93 students. Each student turns in a portfolio of 7 papers that they have been working on through out the semester. When they all come in together it is roughly over 600 papers. Some choose not to turn things in so that is where the approximation comes. But thanks for watching my back.
Jinx, by "The Other Provo University", did you mean that Orem is 'the other Provo' or that there was another university in Provo? ... Okay, I know it makes no difference unless you grew up there.
Ah, but this is a valid point. It is splitting hairs, but what would we do if we didn't have semantics?
Everything south of about Draper is "Provo" until you hit the big desert that is central/southern Utah. There should be a big arch as you go around the mountain there by the state prison that reads, "Welcome to Provo: A nice place to live". ...There should be a similar arch heading to the state prison.
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