Winter Roundup

1. Internet has been out at home. I got up yesterday at 5:30 to begin my internet-related tasks, and it wasn't happening. It continued not happening all day long and through this morning. For all I know, it'll still be out when I go back there. Very frustrating,as this is a period of intense emailing and posting stuff. I think I have actually been experiencing the irritation and anxiety of withdrawal about this. (Note: not "withdrawl". Gosh!)

2. My students became insane at the end of the semester. Not all of them, really just a few. But those ones made up for the other 77. Wanting extensions for the work, Incompletes for the class, extended Incompletes, wildly accusing me of losing assignments (when in fact I had already told them that those assignments weren't graded yet), etc. The blizzard on the day / evening of the final did not help, and a number of people had to take a make-up final.

3. I gave weekly assignments/quizzes in my classes because one of our profs did that to make sure people did the readings. (I hear it worked.) It was okay to do it when I had one class. However, it just about killed me this semester when I had two classes totalling 80 people. Today I saw that prof and asked her about it. She told me that the whole reason she did it was that the textbook company she used had an internet quiz service available--she didn't grade them herself at all! "Oh, no, that would have killed me!" she joked pleasantly in her jaunty South African accent.

And here I just thought I was having trouble with it because I was simply not organized enough. Good grief.

4. I often pick up self-help / self-development books that I think might be useful for clients (or heck, for me!). Recent favorite, even if only for the title: (Regardless What You've Been Taught to Believe) There is Nothing Wrong With You. Good if you can accept material through a zen Buddhism-type lens. Might be difficult for some of my more perfectionistic clients, though they probably need it the most.