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The Battle of the Elbow River Redux. . .

The recent Battle for the River Elbow, seen once again from the Stollenian side of the table.

The beauty of multiple bases?  I just spent slightly over an hour putting everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, carefully back in its plastics tubs, consolidating and storing the buildings and terrain, and tidying up in general.  Ahhhhh. . .  I may just pour myself a bit of something medicinal in a moment.  

Tomorrow is September 1st -- Can you believe it? -- and it's time to get painting again for yet another friendly painting challenge that a few like-minded friends and I are waging from September 1st to November 1st.  Or was it December 1st?  No matter.  I've got my anticipated brushwork cut out for me in any case.  But more on that anon.  

Time to finish that first batch of student papers for the semester in the meantime, which I collected yesterday.  This semester will be particularly brutal where free time is concerned.  I've got three writing intensive courses on my schedule: developmental writing, English 103W (what used to be called plain old English Composition 101), and a Horror Cinema course.  

I like what I do, of course, and it pays the bills, but every time you turn around, there are more papers to read and assign some kind of grade.  It never lets up and takes more time than you might think.  That's on top of daily lesson planning and other professional commitments mind you.  Naturally, some students don't always agree with the grades they have earned, so there is the requisite and resultant whining, a fairly recent development, rather than buckling down and working a bit harder and/or longer on the next one.  

Why, in my days as a high school student and an undergraduate, that kind of thing was pretty rare.  One had some hair on his or her chest, taking low C's, D's, and F's like a man back then you understand.  Of course, we had to walk 20 miles uphill to school in three feet of snow, nine months out of the year.  And sometimes, the teachers' and professors' eyelashes were frozen together by the time we got there, so. . .   ;-)

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…
When I was a student I DID have to walk to school. It was about 2 miles and while it was downhill with no snow, it was all uphill (and some of it quite steep) coming home when I was already tired.

Kept me in good shape though . . . but now I have a car and am in lousy shape.

There is probably some sort of a lesson in that.


-- Jeff
9:42 PM
Der Alte Fritz said…
Well, they used to call it "The Gentleman's C" for good reason.

The grade was good enough to keep you in school, but it wasn't so high that you had to spend too much time studying, and taking away from valuable party time. :)

BTW, why are you grading papers from the Spring semester now? Shouldn't grades be turned in before the school year is out?
9:47 PM
Sean said…
Good luck on the grading and the painting challenge
9:48 PM
johnpreece said…
On a non wargaming note, you are doing the students the biggest favour possible by sticking to strict marking.

As an employer it was so depressing when one would warn young staff that their work was not up to standard. After several warnings and attempts to coach and train were ignored they were always amazed by the inevitable result.

Young people with talent and potential are given the message that all their failings will be excused. Sadly it just ain't so.

John
4:58 AM
Peter Douglas said…
Stokes
Buck up lad you'll get through the semester!
I agree that a dose of the strong stuff is just what the doctor ordered.

My classes start Thursday (I have 160 in a first year "stats for people who hate stats class") and I not halfway ready yet. But I just dropped my only daughter off at residence for her first year, so free time on my end may open up.

Cheers and Tally Ho
PD
5:43 AM
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