Brain Death

[jpskewedthrone]

Nothing like grading papers and designing, typing, taking, then revising exams to wipe the brain completely free of any coherent thought. That's pretty much how I spent my day. And I still need to take and revise one of the exams. I think it's going to need a few cuts due to time constraints. What will I cut? I WANT TO ASK IT ALL! *end tantrum*

I think I deserve a movie tomorrow. Knowing or Duplicity? Any nonspoilery advice from the masses?

PS--This is why teachers look so stressed all the time: all of the work we do outside of class that no one really pays any attention to. I mean, seriously, I spent at least 6 hours on grading and exams today. A Saturday. A Saturday when the sun was out and the temperature was actually in the "decent" range. (Sorry to all of those reporting snow, but we had a SPECTACULAR day here.)

Comments

[misunderstruck.livejournal.com]

I hate cutting bits from tests due to time.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

It's such a pain in the ass. They want you to test them on everything, but there's no feasible way to do it. Even combining elements into one problem doesn't cover everything.

We suffer for our art.

[sera-bella.livejournal.com]

It was an absolutely beautiful day, for a change. You know, I noticed that you live in Binghamton.. I'm not far from you, and my sister lives in Binghamton.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

It's a small world. *grin* Come and see us for a signing event or other when we have one next!

[sera-bella.livejournal.com]

I will definitely have to do that! :)

[eldestmuse.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a spoiler to say: If you like campy old Bond movies and liked Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you'll probably like Duplicity if you don't walk in with expectations of awesomeness and are just looking for a fun flick.

I don't know anything about the other movie.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I'm leaning toward Knowing, just because it's SF-ish and involves numbers. But Duplicity is still on my list. If I don't see it today, I'll probably try it later. It did look fun.

[amysisson.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, there are some non-teachers out here who do know what you teachers are doing, at all levels of teaching. So thanks! And hang in there!

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

That's good to know. My partner teases me constantly about not having a "real" job, but in a fun way. I do know there are people out there who tease about that, but not in the fun way though.

[albogdan.livejournal.com]

We've noticed that teacher haters always seem to prove themselves hypocrites. Like the parent we ran into the other day who ranted about teachers not working hard enough. That guy had actually been fired for drinking on the job. Or the cop I know who rants about teachers being paid too much while bragging that he will be able to retire to Florida at age 50 with full benefits and full pay. One guy I know ranted about his high school teachers until I asked if put any effort into learning at that age. He said no, but that they should have made him learn (against his will.) On and on...

[ravens-shadow.livejournal.com]

This past week was spring break here (Univ of Hawaii), but I spent the first half translating Beowulf, and the second half trying to figure out a presentation I'm giving next week (and still working on it, trying to balance out the information). I know a lot of students who don't like it when an exam is based solely or primarily on text info that the professor never mentioned in class. (I don't know whether that helps you at all, though.)

I haven't seen either movie, but based on the commercials, my big question for Knowing is, how the heck do they figure out that the numbers on that paper relate to disasters. How do they know 12135 is 121 and 35 rather than 12 and 135 or some other combination? If I knew they had a good answer to that, I might watch it to find out.

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

In my experience with math in movies and TV shows, they draw pretty pictures and say impressive sounding math terms but do no real math. I would guess that is what will happen with this movie. In real life they would run the numbers through a computer to come up with all the possible ways the numbers could be split apart. Then a person would look through them until some patterns came out that were familiar. Then they would only look at combinations that matched the ones that contained that pattern, look for more patterns, and continue weeding out in this fashion.

In terms of the test, it's almost impossible to expect students to learn math on their own outside of class, so I'm pretty sure he mentioned everything in class.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I have this question about how they see the patterns as well, after seeing the paper the numbers are on. If the main character isn't a mathematician, I want to know how he discovers the patterns . . . and the way is probably disappointing from a math perspective. But we'll see. I can still enjoy the movie even if they do flub over the math. (My dad couldn't stand movies like Top Gun where they flubbed the jet pilot things since he was a jet pilot.)

And I do know some students also spend tons of time outside of class on work, just like the teachers. I'm guessing most of my students aren't those students though, based on the grades and work I see. *grin* And as rosinavs said, everything on the exam has been covered in class, so there shouldn't be any complaints there.

[jennifer-brozek.livejournal.com]

I just saw Knowing and really liked it for a few reasons - most of all because it is an unexpectly sci-fi movie that isn't what you think it is. There are other spoilerfic reasons that I really liked it. I think most people will really like it until the last 20 minutes. Then they will love it or hate it. I loved it.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I'm leaning toward Knowing, so hope that the rest of the group going today wants to see it as well.

The Weather's A Changing!

[vespican.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hate being stuck inside on a nice day. Now if I have something I want to do inside when it's nice out, then it's a different story.
Anyway, the weather here in the Inland Northwest can very on a daily or even hourly basis. About two weeks ago we had some of the lowest temperatures of the year. A week ago it was warm enough for quick jaunts outside with no jacket. Today it's snowing, although the temperature is such that one degree warmer and it would probably be rain. So far (thankfully) it's not sticking to roads or sidewalks. Does give me a good excuse to be inside and at the computer.
Dave