Student "edition" found at {thoughts dot com slash typed no space out no space loud slash blog}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

The Negative Nelly I was talking about in the student accessible version is of course Slacker Co-teacher.

I had the luck of going out with him again to lunch, and the departmental workshop was brought up.

He talked about the hassle of four years ago, when we were at an exotic locale, and we spent all day at the terrace of a hut just looking at the tide roll out so that you could walk down the beach for a kilometer or more, and we saw it roll back in again.

And what were we talking about? It was whether we should check student attendance or not.

The problem was most of us were in agreement, except for one teacher (now gone, thankfully) who didn't want it on the basis that there may be one student out of ninety nine (parabolic analogy mine, not hers) who would otherwise pass even if not attending regularly. It came down to a vote again (a tactic the then EVP would use again and again even on matters best decided by himself, such as should faculty attendance be checked), but by that time it was too late. A lot of us were frustrated instead of relaxed.

And as it turned out, that teacher who was just playing devil's advocate didn't really practice what she preached, and routinely failed students due to excessive absences she said, even though she would give other students another chance.

And even when I brought up that in the next workshop after that it didn't happen like he was griping, he had something else to whine about that place.

I also realized now that even when we're talking about women, there hasn't been a student around that people in general would consider beautiful for whom he doesn't have a criticism, either physically or in her behavior or choice of boyfriends.

I guess that could be considered a talent, but not anything that would make him go far.

@@ In my astronomy lecture class finals today, for the second section, that only had eleven students, instead of assigning them sets like I did with the first class, and a seating arrangement, I had them sit wherever they wanted and told them that I would let them choose between the two sets which one they wanted to answer, as long as they didn't tell the other class.

Fair? Maybe not, but no assuming slackers in this class like the other one.

Session 2631 doesn't want balance. Class dismissed.