Thursday morning mood

Pretty much sums it up.

I'm still cranky over the bad interactions of last night, was annoyed by a tv ad that essentially was telling parents "buy this product so your children can learn just how SPECIAL they are"

(I was taught, growing up, that I was NOT special; that considering others' feelings was important, to let other people go first in the buffet line, etc., etc. and so as a result, when, as an adult, I run up against someone who believes they are special I always lose out, because I think people think like I do and I assume if someone pushes ahead of me in line, they have a better reason than they just think they're entitled to....)

I have to go in and enter grades. I haven't checked my e-mail (from work) since Tuesday and I'm kind of dreading the "can I have extra credit" requests (I get these every semester and even though I have a "don't ask" clause in the syllabus, people STILL ask).

And I'm tired. It took me a long time to fall asleep last night what with being peopled-out and mildly upset. If I didn't feel I had to get something done at work today I'd just lock myself in my sewing room and work on quilts but I can't do that.

Edited to add: I checked my work e-mail from home.

I shouldn't have done that :(

Edited to add:

Grades have been submitted. E-mails three have been dealt with:

1. Student who missed three exams, who had scheduled make ups for two of them but skipped those, wanted to 'still' make them up if possible (there is a time limit given in the syllabus, and they were past it). I said no, and bcc'd my chair just in case of repercussions. (The student later e-mailed me back, fundamentally conveying this in their e-mail:

So at least I know they won't grieve the grade (most likely). My chair did say she liked being cc'd on things like that just so she KNEW in case.

2. Student with a grade at x9.8 wanting the next higher grade. The "ask" was kind of strange ("I would like the opportunity to earn the higher grade") but my general policy in those cases is that unless someone's a flaming jerk in class (to me and/or to the other students), I do the bump-up. Later conversation with a colleague proved my instincts correct: he said "This is a promising student and we want to keep them"

3. A student who (for medical reasons) had to make up exams in my class, which I know they did, and I know they graded, and I thought I had entered the grades BUT I HAD NOT and I could not find the exams (which I don't think I handed back) in my office - I spent about the first 40 minutes of my being here looking for them and now I wonder if maybe I sent them to recycling inadvertently. Not knowing what to do, I extended the offer of averaging their grades on the other three exams in the class and subbing that in. They were agreeable to that, it earned them the grade they would most likely have earned (based on all their other performance in the class) but it's a little bit spooky that I didn't get the grades entered (though it's also entirely possible that Blackboard was back on its BS the day I entered them and it never recorded them though it initially accepted the numbers)

 So anyway. Grades are in which means my obligations until graduation are over.

I do need to find some motivation and cheerfulness and stuff. I pulled out the recent "examination copies" of ecology texts with the idea of reading up on some of the areas (like predator-prey relationships) I'm less familiar with to (a) see if there's been any new research/models/ideas recently or (b) if there's some better way to teach it. But it's just kind of hot and humid here and I'm tired and feeling a little burnt out and the AC isn't up as high in the building as I'd like....I'll probably work for an hour or an hour and a half (using pomodoros) and then go home for the afternoon.