20160316.0833

Work continues, of course. I have one more class's papers to grade, and going through them ought to be a quick enough job; there are only ten submissions from a class that still has fifteen students enrolled. I have already been getting complaints about the papers I have graded for other classes, as well; honestly, I am surprised that I have not gotten more such yet this term, although I am perhaps a bit surprised to have heard from a student during the break. I am not likely to change my assessment as a result, however; I publish detailed assignment sheets (such that students complain about them being too long, as if tl;dr is ever an acceptable excuse for me--or should be for anyone) and somewhat simplistic rubrics that make my grading an issue of "Did the paper do it well enough?" (Some discussion of my grading can be found here; assignment sheets abound elsewhere on the hosting website.) Arguing against the assessment will be...challenging, and I do not think the student in question is up to that particular challenge. Perhaps I will be surprised.

Yesterday was busy enough. I did get a piece posted to Travels in Genre and Medievalism, here, after grading another class's work, so I met one of my goals for the week with plenty of time to spare. It was a pleasure to do so, and it was useful exercise for my ongoing intellectual efforts. I will need the skills that I practice in such pieces for my still-developing paper for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, which I have stubbed out and need to fill in. (I forgot to collect an article I want to use for the project when I was at my office for yesterday's tutorial--I gave one yesterday evening--which is an annoyance but one easily enough remedied. I have the keys that will allow me into the office at need.) Additionally, yesterday saw me get a fair bit of personal writing done, as well, stuff that I do for my own reasons and which only occasionally filters through the layers of mediation between the hand-inked page and public dissemination. I can hope, though, that more of certain ideas will make it out into the wider world; I do use my journals to foster ideas for later treatment.

The Mrs., Ms. 8, and I will be running around a bit today, too, or we plan to do so. The state's second city beckons to us, partly because the Mrs. has some business there early this afternoon. Our thought has been to make a day of it, but we are all off to something of a late start for that end. I slept in, likely tapping "dismiss" when I meant to tap "snooze," and I am the only one awake as yet. If I am, though, it is because I am the only one in Sherwood Cottage at the moment for whom work continues...