You lose some

Or, it's a good thing colleagues talk to each other.

I had a student - different student from the one I referred to yesterday - come to me and said. "I shouldn't have to take this class I'm in; I did an internship in this topic. Dr. W. said you could give me an exam to test me out of the class."

And, because I never expect dishonesty in that form, I said, "Okay, let me think about it, maybe I could modify an old final exam."

But then it bugged me. So I e-mailed my colleague W.

Turns out he never said that, and the student is, "trying to wangle a way out of what he needs to do." And that this is a common pattern. I never had the student before so I didn't know that.


I'm irritated. I almost went to the trouble of writing an exam, AND now I have to tell the guy, "Never mind what I said earlier, you can't" and I will have to deal with what will probably be annoyance on his part.

Also, it's cold and rainy here but no consolation of weather bad enough for a snow day. And I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon where I will be weighed and have my bp taken and hopefully won't be told I need to do yet another lifestyle change. (I haven't been eating as restrictively lately, and I'm afraid I've put back on a little of the weight I lost. But dammit, when you spend all day in a chilly office, and you're tired all the time...it's hard to work up enthusiasm for that big plate of green beans with vinegar and nothing else for dinner). And I'll be worrying about getting out of the appointment in time to get to piano lesson. AND none of the students who "promised" to bring me soil for tomorrow's lab did. Luckily I have enough of two previous semester's amounts to just do "Soil 1A and Soil 1B and Soil 2A and Soil 2B." What's important here is the process, not the results. But boy darn I'm glad I'm not having to go out into the wet and the cold and dig soil today. (I COULD change the lab to another lab I had scheduled later....one that takes longer and involves more math. But meh, I have the soils)