Yesterday I had to invigilate two exams, neither for my own classes, and while the first one went surprisingly easily, finishing very early because ALL 250 students got up en masse in unison at the thirty-minute mark and left, so we invigilators could leave early, and the second one went rather easily, too, when I returned to my office I found an email waiting from me from Fukudai's administration. They were telling me that because I didn't go to invigilate the exam I was assigned to do, our department chair had to do it for me!
I thought, What the what? Didn't I just invigilate an exam? Then a horrible thought hit me: what if I'd gone to the WRONG room?!?! I immediately hustled back to the venue, the second floor of building 8, and to my horror discovered that indeed I'd been in the WRONG room, 826, when I should have been in 821! How could I have made such a mistake? I've been at Fukudai since 1997, doing exams every semester since then, and I've never gone to the wrong room or missed my invigilation duties. What happened is I went to the second floor of building 8 and instead of checking the room number, assumed the big one on the left of the stairwell was for me, because ... because... because I saw a mob of students crowding into the room and assumed that mine must be that one because... because... because... I have no idea why I didn't bother to check the room number before entering the room! Earlier that day I'd checked my invigilation room assignments to confirm them and had written them down to be sure I'd remember them and not make any mistakes... ANYWAY, I had to apologize to our chair and promise to take one of his exam duties in fall semester, but I do feel very sorry for him to have to do an extra job yesterday. Invigilating is not easy. You stand around or pace a little too for an hour, trying not think about catching coronavirus (or covid) and feeling your feed, knees, and lower back start hurting... And my careless error made our chair do an extra test! Yikes... By the way, yesterday I also forgot to bring my collared shirt with me when I left for the bus, so it was lucky that my blue t-shirt was good enough to pass muster (maybe...). Am I losing it? I am over 60 and it is over 35 degrees... Oh, one thing I did during my invigilation yesterday was to note the t-shirts the kids are wearing, and here are some interesting ones: a black t-shirt with a lovely photograph of the sky with colored clouds in it and the words: "Serendipity: (noun) finding something good without trying to." A black t-shirt with giant white words "WORK WORK WORK" and a green line of paint crossing through each one. A long-sleeved black t-shirt with the words "HAVE INSPIRATION" written going from the left sleeve across the back and then down the right sleeve. A beige t-shirt with the words, "FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION ALL MUST SUCCEED" And then the puzzling one: a t-shirt with letters on the back looking like they'd been cut out of a magazine or newspaper for a kidnapping ransom note, saying, "Atmosphere Urine."
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Yikes, it's been HOT--June ended with days about as hot and humid as mid- or late-August, around 35 degrees etc. Kids and teachers have been suffering, melting, wilting...
The air conditioners are usually working in the classrooms, but as we have windows and doors open in the classrooms to promote air circulation during coronavirus times, things still get plenty uncomfortable. Anyway, here are some highlights from the last few weeks of classes. I found out some interesting things about some students in English conversation class for first-year majors. For example, one girl's parents are both nurses, who met in nursing college and work in different hospitals in the same city, the father getting higher pay than the mother. And one girl's parents own a patisserie, so she's always smelling good things baking and eating tasty cakes and such. I started having to ask a boy in one class to pull up his mask, because he was constantly pulling it down (or letting it drop down) around his chin. As the class he's in is "Interactive English" (basically English conversation), so the students talk a fair amount, and as one of his classmates had recently returned from being out with Covid (and telling us that he'd been coughing blood while sick), and as they sit side by side in the classroom, etc., it's rather appalling that a kid would want to have a class like that without wearing his mask properly. I continue to get weird flashes as if seeing people buck naked when students pull down their masks to get a drink during class. It is a sign of how weird our current life is that I feel uncomfortable when seeing people's faces... I have pretty much mastered all my students' names and faces by now, without the aid of the photo cards I used to have all classes give me. But there are still a few here and there whose names I regularly botch, like the girl whose family name I keep mangling, Megashira, Shimameguribashi, etc., when it's Murashige. And the class with three Rinas, three Mizukis, and a Motoki and a Tomoki, an Ayami, Ayari, and Ayuri, a Riku and a Rukuo, and a Jumpei and a Junsuke, not to mention a Karen and a Karin is still challenging (in a fun way, as it's fun to say their names when greeting them before class). My Reading and Writing class for Commerce majors continues to be challenging, because, although most of the students are capable enough to do what has to be done to participate in the class and pass it etc., and a few are super, there are several who are clueless, hopeless, dire, and almost doomed. They sleep in class; they get one point out of five on our daily quizzes, even though I basically give the answers to the class during each lecture so that if the students do homework and pay attention in class the quizzes should be easy to get perfect scores on; they copy their friends' homework; and so on. They also tend to miss too many classes... I may have to fail them, but I don't want to. Failing them will doom them to taking huge repeater classes next year, and we are in the coronavirus times, so teachers are supposed to be more lenient about absences.... Apart from this class, most students in most classes are doing well enough to get (and deserve) credit. Anyway, this has been an increasingly difficult semester, because throughout June and into July I've been having to go to all-day Saturday meetings for our entrance exams and to take several hours preparing for them during the week, so my usual Saturday of resting and recovering energy expended during the work week has been gone. So I'm really getting tired and my lower back is really sore... sob sob sob! Just two more weeks now, though, of usual classes! |
Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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