4.11.07

some random thoughts about groceries, mimes and teaching kids

A day in which I spend nearly two hours walking to and from the grocery store, get honked at by folks in a car* and learn that most people I know in Pakistan are okay. Which is a good thing considering over 500 have been arrested and emergency rule established. With friends like these...

I also finally caught up on my students' online discussions--it's pretty encouraging how they have started becoming more confident in their views through the semester and how they are all bouncing ideas off each other. Online. In the class itself, it's less dynamic though the security simulation last week went well. I've also got a few fairly difficult cases and am slightly worried about what to do with them. On the one hand, it's their first semester so I don't want to crush their spirits. On the other hand, if they slack off, they should get penalised. I'll see how things go.

I'm still horribly behind on my grading. So far behind that I've papers from early October as yet ungraded. Between being ill and suddenly acquiring a tendency to fall asleep at odd hours of the day, things have not gone brilliantly this semester. I'm eagerly looking forward to its end.

Oh, and I made $7 as a mime during the time of a metro trip. That's $7 in less than 20 minutes. I suppose I can supplement my (future) pay by being a mime on my days off teaching.



* Thought that only happened in my part of the world. I also think it's because I was wearing a "I'm a Berkeley grouch" t-shirt (with a Sesame Street character on it) and carrying a couple of rather dodgy-looking BigNameConference bags, overflowing with groceries. The bags were free and are very convenient for grocery shopping (especially when the grocery store I like going to is half an hour's walk away). One of the bags had "Power Reconsidered"--in bold blue writing--on it.

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15.5.07

should i intervene or should i leave?

I'm rather incoherent for a proper post right now (grading, grading and more grading) but wanted to share some of the "discoveries" I've made in the course of grading my students' papers:

1. How to access sources?: Be creative!
A student doing research on a rather sensitive topic uses MySpace and CraigsList to find sources. The results are actually quite amusing.

2. What to do?: Can't tell, really.
Students researching the "war on drugs", female genital mutiliation and HIV/AIDS all ask how they would (hypothetically) react if their research participants had wrong medical information about their subject matter.

3. Who are we talking with?
Discussions of "research participants" versus "research subjects"; "Third World" folks; "Leftist" governments and so on.

4. Where does it all come from?
A student doing scientific research pointing out that the data she's using "used to be someone's words at some point". So often that point gets missed amongst the numbers we see.

5. Where did they all go?
This time around, there were a few kids who never handed in written work, hardly ever showed up to class and who couldn't be tracked down at the end of the semester.


E's disappeared so you'll be stuck with me until she returns. Yes, yous can join me in hoping she will be back soon

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