On notice: (this is just me venting here)

If you have decided coming to class is non-essential to you, and then you get a 5% on an exam, you have abdicated your right to complain that I am a bad teacher. Especially when another student - one who is always in class and who participates and who does the homework - gets 100% on the exam, and several others score in the 90s.

If you miss three weeks of school without a peep as to why, and then come back and ask for makeup work, do not expect me to be cheerful about it. If you have a real medical reason that's documentable as to why you couldn't get near a phone (or get your near and dear ones near a phone) to call the school and let them know, I have to give you the makeup. But I don't have to be cheerful about it.

If you skip the first exam without any notification to me as to why, you don't get to take a makeup. It's your drop exam. I announced it in class, on the class website, and it was in the syllabus. I regard that as sufficient notification for you.

I think part of the issue is that some of the students don't quite grasp that if THEY have a major problem that requires me to do something that involves putting myself out timewise (e.g., writing a make up exam), it's probably likely several others are making the same request. Seeing as I have three classes ranging in size from 20 to 30 and a fourth class of about 10. People don't always understand how things snowball, and that accepting one late paper usually means I'm really accepting five or eight. And it's hard to deal with even five people requiring makeup work. And it's a drag to have to grade the "straggler" papers after I've burned up all my grading energy.

I sympathize that students have family issues, or work issues, or they're taking a heavy load of coursework, or that they get sick or something. But I also have volunteer-work issues, and allergy issues, and being-asked-to-do-things-I-will-not-be-thanked-or-recognized-for-on-extremely-short-notice issues (I found a grant proposal for the Small Grants office on my campus in my mailbox this morning. I'm expected to evaluate it and return it to them. The due date is Wednesday. I'm working on it now but I'm not super happy about it.). So it's not always easy for me to be much more than civil with someone who calls up and says, "I just couldn't get out of bed for the exam..." That doesn't mean anything to me! Could you not get out of bed becauase you had a fever of 102, or because you were just tired?

****

I'm working on the second sleeve of the Hourglass pullover. On the one hand, I'll be glad to get this done so I can move on to another sweater, but on the other hand, it's nice to have something simple to knit on while I read. (I decided that my research-reading in the evenings was the "cats" that I had been "neglecting.")

I would really like to pop the bindings onto a couple of quilts I have that have been sitting around, but I don't think I'm going to get the time to do it this weekend. Sigh. I'd also like to start a new quilt - I have some turquoise and brown fabric that I'd like to use for one of those "modern quilt" quilts but I don't know that I can justify taking the time. I have an exam to write and research-reading to do and the danged grant proposal to read and evaluate. And today is a research day; that's why I'm in here. I guess it's good I came in or else I'd not have found the proposal. (NO, no one ever called me and asked me if I was willing or had time. They just ASSUMED I did. That's how the administration works here sometimes.)

****

I did get the new Interweave Crochet yesterday. (And another On Notice: the teens and preteens that run around the wal-mart because we don't have a local mall. PLEASE do not walk slowly in a "clot" blocking the already-too-narrow aisles. There are some of us with lives to attend to, who don't wish to spend the rest of them in a big-box store.)

It's a nice issue. There are several attractive items in it. My favorite is the "Pineapple Ice" sweater jacket.

And I love the Josephine pullover - except it's a bit more "bare" than what I'd be comfortable with. Perhaps with a camisole or silk t-shirt on under it...it's the bare-ish midriff thing I'm not super comfortable with.

There are a couple nice coats in there, but if I were doing Ultraviolet it would most definitely be in a more subdued color.

I even like the Woodstock Duster. NO, not in those colors. But envision it in white or off white - or any "gentle" color, and all-in-one color, and you've got something that's more Romantic than it is Janis Joplin.

(But in her own way, Janis Joplin was sort of a Romantic.)

I like the afghan, too, and am contemplating pulling out my balls of unused wool-ease and thinking about using them to make one.

***

I found out I have a bit of a "windfall" coming due to a class-action suit against a company that cheated on its financial statements. So I have a little over $200 coming my way. So I don't know - do I put it in my savings account? Give it away to charity? Go out and buy a satellite radio receiver?

My first inclination was to do a yarn shopping-spree somewhere. But I have so much yarn and so little time to knit it up. My second inclination was to buy the radio. But I don't know. Part of me says, "You're meant to put this into savings - just watch, something will happen as an emergency that will cost exactly that." And part of me also says, "There's so much need in the world...wouldn't it be good karma* to take the money that came from a company that did bad and use it to do good."

(*Yeah, I know that's not the correct, Buddhist-approved definition of karma, it's more like the My Name Is Earl definition of karma. But whatever.)

(Yeah, I'm procrastinating. I'm waiting on my colleague to come in with the research-material we are supposed to be using. It should not take him more than an hour, and yet it does.)