I had a scare today. The half-way-point-break just started, during my afternoon class, and one of the other grad students came up to me and asked if she could ask me about essay marking. You see, we both TA for the same instructor, and she's been working through her stack of essays...
Panic.
"The essays already came in?" I gasped. I was sure that they didn't get handed in until next week. My entire workload is scheduled around those essays.
"Yeah, they should be in your mailbox," she responded. "I'm not sure that I'll have mine done by Friday, like he wants." Friday? That means he got the essays back last week? Why hasn't he contacted me? Haven't I been reading my e-mails?
And so we walked to my mailbox, while we discussed different issues with marking. (Do they get docked if they're way under the page limit? Can I fail them if they only cite Wikipedia? I said "yes" to the second question, but advised her that we should make sure we're on the same page as the instructor.) My stack of essays weren't in my mailbox. Now I was getting worried, but planned to e-mail the instructor when I got home, and I figured that this bought me time to finish my entire Friday presentation tonight. My brain launched into survival mode, and I confess that I forgot to say anything during the entire second half of class. I also felt very tired.
It felt like forever until I got home. I went back and reviewed the e-mails that the instructor sent us. Oh, right: the instructor teaches two different sections. My section doesn't hand their essays in until the 23rd, and I have until April 3rd to have them marked.
So, I'm no longer in survival mode. But that means I'm back in procrastination mode. Chris and I read through a Far Side treasury, and then I finished reading the TWoP recap of the Battlestar Galactica season finale (for goodness sake, the episode was even gripping in recap form). It's good to be back.
In other news, the instructor of my other TAing gig was trying to figure out more ways to use up my hours (as he wants to mark the essays himself, and the seminar-leading isn't using too much of my assigned hours), and he came up with the most awesome job ever, in my world. He's discovered that the library holdings aren't particularly good for his specific field, and so he found a good and recent bibliography, has put a star beside works that are considered essential, and I'm supposed to find out if the library has each work, and if they don't, I'm supposed to look up their publication info, ISBN, and price, and type all that up for him, so that he can start making requests.
I get to search databases, and then go shopping online for someone else. This is way better than photocopying journal articles (which, in the past, has been my "use up her hours" busywork).
Panic.
"The essays already came in?" I gasped. I was sure that they didn't get handed in until next week. My entire workload is scheduled around those essays.
"Yeah, they should be in your mailbox," she responded. "I'm not sure that I'll have mine done by Friday, like he wants." Friday? That means he got the essays back last week? Why hasn't he contacted me? Haven't I been reading my e-mails?
And so we walked to my mailbox, while we discussed different issues with marking. (Do they get docked if they're way under the page limit? Can I fail them if they only cite Wikipedia? I said "yes" to the second question, but advised her that we should make sure we're on the same page as the instructor.) My stack of essays weren't in my mailbox. Now I was getting worried, but planned to e-mail the instructor when I got home, and I figured that this bought me time to finish my entire Friday presentation tonight. My brain launched into survival mode, and I confess that I forgot to say anything during the entire second half of class. I also felt very tired.
It felt like forever until I got home. I went back and reviewed the e-mails that the instructor sent us. Oh, right: the instructor teaches two different sections. My section doesn't hand their essays in until the 23rd, and I have until April 3rd to have them marked.
So, I'm no longer in survival mode. But that means I'm back in procrastination mode. Chris and I read through a Far Side treasury, and then I finished reading the TWoP recap of the Battlestar Galactica season finale (for goodness sake, the episode was even gripping in recap form). It's good to be back.
In other news, the instructor of my other TAing gig was trying to figure out more ways to use up my hours (as he wants to mark the essays himself, and the seminar-leading isn't using too much of my assigned hours), and he came up with the most awesome job ever, in my world. He's discovered that the library holdings aren't particularly good for his specific field, and so he found a good and recent bibliography, has put a star beside works that are considered essential, and I'm supposed to find out if the library has each work, and if they don't, I'm supposed to look up their publication info, ISBN, and price, and type all that up for him, so that he can start making requests.
I get to search databases, and then go shopping online for someone else. This is way better than photocopying journal articles (which, in the past, has been my "use up her hours" busywork).
No comments:
Post a Comment