May-- Part 1

At this rate I may only have two blog postings for this entire month, so I thought it appropriate to title this blog "Part 1." The first half of this month has been crazy busy but I will endeavor to do a better job at blogging in the coming weeks.

Early May always brings the welcome end to the Spring semester. By May I am always extremely grateful to be getting rid of my current students and looking forward to a break before the next classes start. Teaching online can be frustrating, boring, stressful, and occasionally, rewarding. I've been teaching for about 4 years now and, I admit, I'm already getting a little burned out with online classes. It is an ideal situation for me, being able to stay at home with Carver and still work in my chosen profession, but often I get really anxious to be back on campus. We'll see if that works out for the coming semesters.

The end of the semester always brings some crazy situations with students. Every semester I get a handful of students who (finally) realize they are failing the class and, at the very last minute, want to know what they can do to pass the class. The answer is nothing. Too late, dear students. Completing exams, quizzes, assignments, and essays are requirements for passing the class, not suggestions. If you can't be bothered to do the work then I can't be bothered to bail you out at the end.

This semester also brought two fun plagiarism cases. The first plagiarized 85% of her assignment and stated that she didn't realize you had to use citations when "paraphrasing and summarizing facts." Well, word-for-word copying/pasting paragraphs into your essay and then presenting it as your own work does not constitute paraphrasing OR summarizing. Look it up in the dictionary.

Then, another student spent days trying to convince me that the fact that she included a paragraph in her paper that had previously been published in 2003 by a Ph.D from Cambridge was merely a coincidence. She had never read those words before so, clearly, they were "her words." Besides, she got her information from the t.v. show Charmed...

So very, very, annoying.

But, alas, the semester is over. Those students are no longer my problem and I can spend the next couple of weeks frantically trying to get ready for the next ones.

Moving on to much more fun and exciting things, here are some pics to recap the first part of this lovely month of May.

Mother's Day

New blue chair-- he mostly likes to climb on it or carry/push it throughout the house.

Carver has (sort of) embraced the wearing of sunglasses.

(Early morning walk with Daddy and the girls. Don't worry, he doesn't normally wear pajamas in public.)

Building a tent in the living room.

Trying to climb on top...

If Carver had a favorite outfit, this would probably be it.

The back deck is ready for Spring/Summer usage. Flowers plus some potted herbs (dill, parsley, and basil. Not pictured: Rosemary)


Hummingbirds are probably my very favorite thing about summers in GA-- see the little red feeder? It attracts a lot of sweet, tiny, birds :)

Current favorite flower: Lemon Zest Petunias

Awkward aerial view of my (small) vegetable garden. Tomatoes, zucchini and squash (hopefully--long story), cucumber, Bell Pepper, Jalapeno Pepper)

I promise to update my blog more regularly so check back soon. I can't afford to lose any of my readers :)