Robot Claw

I was sitting at the mall today, eating lunch while looking out the window overlooking the carpark. A minivan had parked in a no parking zone and I watched a policeman write a ticket and stick it onto a side window.

It was raining  at the time, and over the next few minutes I saw the ticket get wetter and wetter, and slowly start sliding down the window. Eventually it reached the bottom, and folded over, off the window, onto the ground.

There it sat for a minute or so, until the water pooling just next to the car carried it, ever-so-slowly, underneath the van. Shortly thereafter it was out of my sight. The minivan was still illegally parked; the owner had not returned.

I expect, some time after I left, he did. I also expect he got in his car and drove off with absolutely no idea he had been ticketed. I can only imagine one day a letter will arrive finding him in contempt of court or something like that.

And, in all probability, he’ll be speaking the truth when he claims “I had no idea!”

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming K-9 spinoff series.

I think I’m not the only one that thinks that this is perhaps awful. K-9’s voice in particular is terrible, as is his redesign (flying!). The monsters are worse than those in 1970s Japanese Sentai, and the whole thing has that “made on the cheap in Australia” feel to it (which is true).

Ugh.

A friend of mine reports there is going to be a twenty year (!) school reunion coming up later this year…

…I REALLY WANT TO GO!

Twenty years though! Holy god that makes me feel old.

I wonder who amongst my old friends is planning on attending?

I’m grading exams today. It’s not going well. In fact I had to go out just now to buy a new red pen, such is the quantity of red ink being used.

While grading I’ve got the new Morrissey album (Years Of Refusal) on heavy (and very loud) rotation…

The thing that most confounds me is why my students seem like they hardly try. I have 4+ office hours per week, am available via email and after class, and give them every consideration possible. For instance, even though I stressed I would not accept homework late I have been without penalty. I repeatedly urged them to study, had a review session in which I strongly hinted what to study (and blatantly said what wouldn’t be in the exam) and allowed everyone a double-sided cheat sheet.

And yet the exams are still, to be frank, dismal.

Unlike this Morrissey album, which at this point is all that is keeping me from unfettered rage. He’s 50 now, and his songwriting is at it’s peak. He has embraced his persona so magnificently, and an opus like All You Need Is Me is proof that he’s laughing at himself with us at this point. “You don’t like me but you love me either way you’re wrong.” – No Morrissey, you’re the one who is wrong about that 🙂

Each student pays for this course. Hundreds of dollars. How can they not care? Why do 15% of them never do homework? Why are the attempt at even the trivial questions so sloppy? How could some utterly ignore units when I reminded them several times during the exam “don’t forget units”?

“When I Last Spoke To Carol” is a song that reminds me of regret. The worst kind even – the regret of never saying what you wanted to (or should) say to someone now dead. I have a personal struggle with regret, in that it’s not an emotion easily felt by me. What happens happens (or so I say), but perhaps my difficulty with nostalgia is some sort of suppressed denial of regret?

My student cannot retake this exam. Tomorrow I will hear excuses and pleas, and the usual comments: “Does effort count?”, “Will you curve the grades?”, “Can I still pass the course?”. I will silently remind myself that I expected as much, even as I remind them I predicted as much. The easiest grade to get is the grade before the midterm. The hardest grade to get is after, which for most students will ultimately be the grade they need the most. I expect tomorrow, when I am perhaps a little harsh in my comments, a few of them will feel regret for perhaps not understanding how harsh I wasn’t with them before.

People learn from their mistakes I suppose. “That’s How People Grow Up” says Morrissey. We are (figurately, I hope) battered, beaten and bruised by little defeats, which strengthen us. Every semester I tell my students it often takes a poor exam performance for them to realize college is more serious than they have obviously been treating it.

They have a good teacher in me. They have to use that, and abuse that. All I can ask of them is they put half as much effort into this course as I do, but unfortunately all I expect from them is half that 🙁

(ps. My internet has been spotty this week, and I’m not sure if it’s back 100% at this point. Excuse me if I haven’t been replying to your emails…)

We have our very own wildlife camera now, attached to a tree out back. It takes photographs when the motion detector is triggered, and has a flash for night photos.

So what stalks our yard in the perilous eve?