Progress Update

whonose: Ah so thats what examiners do when they are up in front pretending to keep an eye on the entrants.. they're blogging!

W

hat am I doing here? I have no progress to report... Well, maybe a little. I finished grading the J-Lit exams and will have the grades up shortly. I am halfway through the Classical Japanese exam and hope to finish soon, as I have a monster stack to grade with the film class finals. Ugh. Too much work!

Oh, about yesterday's entry: Yes, whonose, I was blogging as I was proctering. Guilty as charged. Since our school has gone wireless, I can sit in a number of places with a laptop and do whatever I want. It's freakin' amazing. So I was updating Xanga as I was watching my kids sweat it out. They are so adorable when they are concentrating so hard!

But actually, I don't usually proctor my exams. I am the sort that steps out of the room and lets my kids work in peace. This is a habit I picked up at Stanford. The school at the time had a tradition of leaving students during an exam. I'm not sure if this was school policy or some kind of academic integrity code, but I remember not having professors in the room when I took exams as well. Well, as a graduate student, I taught a few classes there as well, and I was warned by the program director that once a student sued a professor for being in the room during an exam. Apparently, his presence prevented him from concentrating properly and so he failed the exam. Yeah, it sounds pretty bogus, and the suit had absolutely no merit, but it was a hassle for the professor and the school nonetheless. So since then, I have practiced leaving the room. I pop back in every 30 minutes or so, in case there are questions, but I try to stay out of their way.

But this year, my class was located 15 minutes from my office and I didn't want to spend 30 minutes walking back and forth. I mean, by the time I got back to my office, I'd have to walk back again. Ridiculous. So I sorta stayed in the room this year. I changed the room for the final--I hate walking that far, even though it's about the only exercise I get--but I stayed in the room anyway, and ended up fielding more than a few questions. One student almost got me to provide an answer! Some of these guys are so sneaky...

Okay, enough blogging, back to grading. *sigh*