The petition

My last semester is finally over, and it was a doozy!

Over the past six and half years I've had good semesters and bad semesters. I've been overwhelmed at times, annoyed at others, generally happy most of it. The May Minimester was a high point for teaching. My students were great. We had wonderful discussions, they were interested, interesting, engaged, engaging, and overall, a pleasure. Earlier in this blog I bemoaned leaving such a wonderful working environment.

Well, I take it all back now.

Summer 1 term was a nightmare! My students were petty, obnoxious, bad mannered, and filled with an overwhelming sense of entitlement; entitled to be given good grades out of the kindness of my heart, apparently. Who needs to study when you can bully, harass, and pressure your professor for the extra points? We're not talking about a Professor Kingsfield from The Paper Chase, either. We're talking about ME: the kindest, softest-hearted instructor in the department. It all culminated in a petition being passed around the class and submitted to the dean of the department. The complaint? My tests were too hard. Puh-leaze!

My students were so stressed out about their test grades, that I created extra credit assignments to help them bring up their grades. Their test grades also improved with each subsequent one. In the end, the insurgency decided to drop the petition. So much for a principled position.

By the way, so you don't think I caved into the pressure, I didn't actually find out about the petition until after I submitted the final grades. I'm just a nice person.

The big day is coming closer and closer. We're still packing up. Sunday we tackled the toys. You can't possibly imagine how many toys three little kids can amass in a lifetime. Every surface in our entire downstairs was covered with toys and games. My husband and I made piles of piles: the complete toy, toy parts, toys to pack, toys to sell, toys to toss, toy bits we couldn't recognize. There were educational toys, building toys, imaginative toys, and choking hazard toys. There were soft toys, plush toys, gender stereotyped toys, and religious indoctrination toys. There were gambling toys, contraband toys, and contraindicated toys.

My parents came back yesterday from a two week visit to New York with my sister and her family, and guess what they brought back? More toys.

Clothes and toys and art and pictures are packed away. The kitchen and office are next. The yard sale is just a couple of weeks away, the apartment lease is signed. The move is closer and closer, and boy, it's a doozy.