And it begins

Got my first grade-grubbing, "Is there anything I can do?" e-mail just now.

I HATE these. "Is there anything I can do?" is a reasonable question to ask after the first exam. It is not a reasonable question to ask after the class has ended.

From time to time I get people who are even more bald-faced than that: "Can I do an extra credit assignment to raise my grade?"

I explain: "Classes have ended. If I offered extra credit to you, I wouldn't be able to make the same offer to the rest of the class. That would be unethical."

And more often than I'd like, the response is: "Oh, that's okay. I won't TELL anyone."

And my response is along the lines of: "let's back up so I can define for you what 'unethical' means. It has nothing to do with my being caught and everything to do with how I feel about myself for how I behave."

Really, are there that many people out there who don't understand that "ethics is what you do when no one else is watching" and that it's not about how they get treated but about how you behave? Or have they just encountered enough people willing to bend their ethics for them?

This frustrates me.

And of course, there's also this:

Because right now, I'm all about not doing any extra work.

I HAD planned to go home and mow the lawn and cut more brush but seeing as the grading took me nearly until 5 pm today, NO. I still have to finish practicing piano and I am TIRED.