So I am officially the world's worst blogger/journal-er/diary-er/etc. I always have been really. I can't tell you how many times I got a journal or diary for Christmas or something and resolved to keep up with it, only to forget all about it 3 days later.
The terrible semester is over....haven't gotten my final grade for one class yet, the one I am on the borderline between A and B for, but the other two I pulled off A's in. Hooray! I consider it a success. And I have been greatly enjoying my reward of being lazy and relaxing since the end of my finals last Wednesday.
But now I need to stop being so lazy and finish the other various things to do before heading back home. I need to finish cleaning my apartment and putting away laundry (why does it always take me a week to just put away all of the clean dishes and laundry?), and then get my Christmas shopping done. The plan is to get all of that done before I leave here Wednesday-ish.
And now I am officially done with TA-ing!!!! I am using a lot of -'s in this post. No more lab setups, labs to teach where no one cares or pays attention to what I say, office hours that only two students come to, tutoring hours where they want me to do their homework for them, grading 72 labs a week, proctoring exams, and getting their ridiculous, untrue, and completely unhelpful evaluations, comments, and criticisms.
On the subject of evaluations though I did have one comment that made me feel I wasn't a total failure. I happen to know who the student is by the handwriting and the fact that (s)he mentioned having me for two semesters and this student was by far one of my best. The student wrote that I was an excellent TA and always willing to help, and that other students had been complaining about me but (s)he wanted to stand up for me becuase the only reason they were complaining about me was because the caliber of the course was higher than what they were used to and they wanted someone who would spoon-feed them the answers instead of making them think. Yay! So I haven't been dragged down to the level of spoon-feeding them as I had feared. Of course by refusing to do that I remain in the bottom half of TA evaluations. I am firmly convinced that the evaluation score is inversely proportional to the average grade of the TA's students, especially when compared with other TAs for the same course where applicable.
Then of course there were the comments that included flat out lies. Nothing makes me more mad than when a student of mine writes something untrue about me in an evaluation that then reflects poorly on me. Such as saying that I would leave the room so that students could not ask for help. First of all your lab manual gives step-by-step instructions (not my fault you didn't bring it to class), I then told you what to do, demonstrated how to do it, then stepped out of the room to get a sip of water since this was my second two-hour lab in a row without a break. There should not have even been any questions in the time it takes to get a sip of water at the water fountain directly outside the lab room, and even if there are is it that terrible to wait 30 seconds for me to get back? And they also mentioned that I refused to answer questions and got frustrated with students. Who wouldn't when i just spent 20 minutes explaining the lab (though you were supposed to have read it before coming to class) and demonstrating exactly what to do, then five hands go up all to ask "Ok, so what do we do first?" What human person would NOT be frustrated with that???
Ok I feel much better after venting about that. I think now it is time for some pumpkin spice cake, then some cleaning accompanied by singing and dancing along to Christmas music.
Heh to your students' evaluations. One semester, a student wrote on mine that he had to write 15 essays. I wanted to tell him that I only graded five and had no idea where the other 10 were.
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