The last week of classes is winding down.
+ I’m all caught up on grading!
– I gave a few students permission to turn in late assignments, due today, so I’m not all caught up.
– I’m giving a lab final in cell biology this morning. so I’m not all caught up.
– I’m giving a unit exam to my intro students tomorrow, so I’m not all caught up.
– I’m giving two final exams next week, so I’m not all caught up.
It’s like you can make a few strokes towards shore, but the current is unending and fierce, and I’m already worn out. Grades are due on 21 December, so that’s my goal, I just have to keep paddling and hope I don’t drown before I get there.
Hey! Maybe there’s a beautiful mermaid waiting for me at the bottom, with a golden pirate’s treasure, so drowning won’t be so bad.
My fate?
Maybe you should date one of the ladies from the Polish film The Lure (2015)
Ps make sure she is not hungry when going near her. Water creatures are apparently often obligate carnivores.
When you do drown, ask the mermaid to lay you flat and cover you with several thousand tons of fine silt, so you will make a good fossil.
“It’s like you can make a few strokes towards shore, but the current is unending and fierce,”
Riptide. You’re caught in a grading riptide.
If there are mermaids, there should be other supernatural entities.
I suggest you get bitten by a vampire before you go near the sea. That way you can subsist on fish blood after you drown, and eventually make it to the shore.
And when you get back, you can dine on anti-vaxxers without feeling guilt.
.
Exams and grading? Have you learned nothing from Boris Johnson? When you are at the top, “work” is something the minions do. And if you cannot pass it off to others, you fake it.
Boris was negotiating with the EU about the returning of the British stake in the European Investment Bank (4 billion euro). He couldn’t be arsed to do the job before a deadline, so he let the EU keep four %#@ billion euro!
But it was OK, it was just the tax payer’s money, not his own.
And if you cultivate that attitude to work, you need never feel stress again 😊 .
Decades ago Rick Masten wrote a poem titled, “I’m not waving, I’m drowning”
PZ, your only fault here is that you are diligent and kind (actually I don’t see that as a fault, merely a complication). Hope you can dig your way out of the academic avalanche soon.
On Another Topic, we all will probably enjoy a comic I have labelled ‘questions in genesis’:
https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2022/12/08
OOOPs, I just served a bowl of mixed metaphors.
Digging AND drowning are compatible if the medium is undergoing a phase shift during the vertical journey.