I've spent my evening grading exams, doing physics homeworks before I assign them, emailing students and TAs... I put a LOT of time into my work, and I enjoy it very much. I do my best to guarantee that students will have a positive experience in my classroom. But one of the astronomy midterms ended with the following quote:

Some of the multiple choice questions were worded very poorly; ex. #37

To which I really want to say, "Fuck you." It's amazing how angering and hurtful that statement can be at the same time. I try my best to be clear, but I am human. However, students have performed well for years with the same questions, so don't blame your poor performance on me! In the past, I've had students approach me after an exam who politely express their thoughts on some of the wordings, and they usually realize that they've misunderstood or misread a question in their haste on the exam. In some cases, I've changed my wording on subsequent exams to prevent confusion. In other cases, I keep the wording because, well, I'm using standard English form and vocabulary, and I'm getting tired of being urged to "dumb down" the language. But don't write something like this on the end of an exam...it's whiny, rude, and counterproductive. At least I was eating chocolate cake as I graded.

On the other hand, another student ended her exam with the following:

ps. Niels Bohr said: "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."

Now that's an appropriate quote to write at the end of an exam.

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To any students who might read this (and I know some are looking for this journal), know that I love you all. You can irritate the hell out of me at times, but I can't imagine another job I'd enjoy more.