The Day of Finals

Time: 9:18 a.m.
Location: My office
Mood: Half-awake, but feeling good.

While I'm waiting for my Psych final to finish copying, I will take a few minutes to catch up for the past few days.

The last day of classes was Wednesday. I had a few students who scheduled early finals with me because they had scheduling conflicts, either University Athletics or something and one student was leaving for Panama soon for the U.S. Army.

The Reservist was very straight-forward about his request and told me weeks a head of time so there was no problem accomodating him. A few people who had asked me if they could reschedule never emailed me to confirm their request so I'm going to assume that they'll be there this morning. The Atheletes, however, are another story. Early on Friday afternoon, I get an email from her demanding to know where her final exam is and that she's going to be late for a game. Then I get a phone call from the University (our department) saying that she's yelling at them and insisting that they produce the quiz.

The student hadn't spoke to me prior to Friday other than "I might have to take the final early" a week earlier. Since there was no confirmation, I accepted that things had changed or that she had worked them out.

When I got to campus and dropped off the quiz, she was all smiles and appologetic (she was waiting for me) and explained that she was stressed out due to their hectic game schedule. Without getting into her behavior too much, I reminded her that she had not emailed me prior to that morning; a fact that she contested until I told her that I could check my email right there and make sure that I didn't miss anything.

When I got to my department, they were definately wanting to make sure that I had handled that student. She was rude and ingratious to say the least.

So then I began to think: "What if she was lying about the game or even if she was on the team?" She was already taking the test but if I caught her in a lie to that magnitude, I'd drop her grade a letter and write a complaint to her file about academic dishonesty.

Well, that problem eventually worked its way out and I spent the weekend preparing the Soc final and working on some house projects. The only big house project that is scheduled is the construction of a portico in the back yard to shield my car from the weather. It's little more than a roof on beams,but it could also, eventually, be turned into a back patio of sorts if I were to put down a floor (other than gravel) and screen it in.

There are no plans or prints for the basic design yet (which bugs me), but I'm starting to draw them up just so I know what's being built and how. My grandfather, who's helping me build this, doesn't need any blue prints (accurate, but not exactly helpful for those like me who can't build an arc with a pocket knife), but when I started to put things together with measurements and diagrams, he latched onto the idea to see exactly how it was going to come together.

Today is mostly for finals. I'm going to be on campus all day long with little to do other than sit through the tests and grade them. Tomorrow, I have to swing by and pick up some make-ups for those students who had scheduling problems today and that's about it.

Once the weather warms up I'll start to dig the holes for the support-posts in the back yard.

Oh well, it's 20-till so I'll end this and start to get myself together to walk to the quiz.

-Tom