20131213.0600

This is the end of exam week.
There ought to be much rejoicing.
There ought to be joy in the hearts of students
Whose semester's labors are done.
There ought to be joy in the hearts of instructors
Whose semester's labors are done.
But both of those mean that it must be true
That the semester's labors are done,
And that is not the case.

The students await the telling of grades
To find if they have failed.
The waiting is the worst part.
It perhaps spurs the complaints
More than the numbers themselves.
(My own experience suggests this.
I get more emails asking for points
Than complaining of not having gotten enough.)

Instructors of most ranks have to make the grades,
To read what students write
And report on the truth thus revealed.
Sometimes they are hindered in this
By one last meeting,
To no reasonable end but to much annoyance,
And they must work all the faster
To find a bit of rest from the work
And space to do The Work--
For exams do not enter into it.