A little nonsense

Since about 1 this afternoon, I've pretty solidly been grading (Well, I took a one-hour break to do the workout it was too humid to do this morning, but other than that, that's about it).

Yup. It's research paper time again. My MO with these is: read them all through once and force myself not to write anything on them (in other words: read for flow, for really glaring scientific inconsistencies, and for that sinking feeling of "I've read this before" - which thank goodness, I did not get this year). Second time through, make comments, correct grammatical errors, circle infelicities like typos and wrong-words, and then finally, read them a third time and assign grades. I usually do the third reading the following day, so I have a time to digest the comparative quality of the papers.

It takes a while.

I finally wound up having to get help. No, not literal help. I got a couple of mascots and put them next to me so I'd feel happier while grading. Which resulted in this photo:



Which I herewith caption:

"FOOL! HE HAST USED 'DATA' AS IF IT WERE A SINGULAR TERM, WHEN IT IS CLEARLY A PLURAL NOUN!"

"um....excuse me? i think that rule has kind of been relaxed now, and anyway, he worked *really* hard and did a good job on the rest of it....if you don't mind."

"Can I draw a smiley muffin on any paper that receives a perfect score?"

And  apparently Luna is left-handed hooved.

Yeah. It's been a long day of grading. (I am also managing by promising myself that once I power through this grading, and once I get my finals all ready to go, I can get back to work on Pinkie Pie, who currently exists as a faceless, hairless head, a body, and part of a front leg.)