- Freelance journalist Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted Ebola in Liberia, arrived at the University of Nebraska Medical Center the other day, becoming the second patient with the possibly deadly disease to be treated in Nebraska.
Why is he being sent to Nebraska instead of some other facility? Because we have really good hospitals here. The hospital they are sent to is the largest of four high-level biocontainment patient care units in the U.S. There's a whole article about it here. I do have to say I hear a lot about this. Not only is the media covering it, I have a childhood friend that's an Infectious Disease Doctor in Pediatrics. She covers Enterovirus, and Ebola on her Facebook page. - I was contacted by my older sister on Tuesday night to make 2 batches of cookies for my Mom and Brother-in-law's birthday get together this Friday. It's a busy week anyhow. At first I was thinking, How will I ever get 2 batches of cookies done?
1 batch was Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies. Those were pretty easy. No thinking involved. Just time consuming.
I was asked to make lemon cookies I've made before. I had no clue what lemon cookies they were talking about - honestly. In the end I just made a batch of sugar cookies with lemon extract instead of vanilla extract. I'm hoping that's what they are talking about. I was going to do fall cookies, but thought lemon with fall shaped cookies would be weird. Chocolate, pumpkin can be added to fall cookies, but not a lemon flavor. Biting into a cookie shaped like a pumpkin that tastes like lemon is odd. Maybe I over think things. In support of the lunar eclipse I did moon, star, and rocket shaped cookies. This image is from a long time ago. The stars in the sky are star cookies. I did a bunch of man on the moons to. They are 1/2 moons with an edible eye added to them. If I think about it, I'll take a picture. - It's midterms this week where I work. I've been trying to keep up with blogging, but I have a few reviews to write. It's busy at home, and on days that I don't teach.
I'm pretty sure I'm one of the more unpopular teachers in first year; right about now. - I'm really impressed with my boys this year. Every day they come home with a green dot for good behavior. I'm glad they are taking school seriously. They are pretty good students.
- My kids have a new Librarian at school this year. Mica and Isaak tell me she's strict. She expects things out of them without communicating what she wants. I'm sure she's a good person, maybe just not good with kids. It's too bad because their Librarian before was a great story teller. Isaak told me that the new Librarian has never read 1 book to them. I think that position should be someone nice, and inspiring to kids. Kids should want to read.
I do worry sometimes about my kids getting Enterovirus. All you can do is wash your kid's hands a lot. Life can't and shouldn't stop.
The hard thing is having a nephew that has a compromised immune system. A virus like that could kill him. Later this month he's having another surgery. I know we're supposed to stay away if we have runny noses. My kids, and I with allergies are always stuffy this time of year. We seriously wouldn't go anywhere if we waited for our stuffy nose to go away. I've been horrible about trying out those edible oils. I forget to take them, and when I remember it's at a time when I'm not at home. Anyhow I need to get on the bandwagon of trying them. If they are bullsh*t I'll soon enough find out.
Why?
A) I critique them honestly.
B) I grade them honestly.
C) My midterm and final exams are around 100 questions. Another instructor here has 20 questions all true and false.
D) In the 12 years of working here I made one mistake that another instructor makes yearly. Instead of printing their grades out with their I.D. numbers I printed them out with their names. I guess a bunch of students thought I did it on purpose. They were oh so mad. Rightfully so. BUT instead of talking to me about it, they wrote a note on top of the grades saying something so awful I'm not putting it on here. 1 student informed me, I thanked her, took the grades down, printed the right copy, wrote a note apologizing, and added points to their last project. I also had a little talk with them in class by apologizing again. I'm not above apologizing. I explained how easy it is to do what I did in the grade system we have here. I mentioned that I'd never do something like that on purpose. I think of grades like paychecks. I would never share how much I make with others; I would never share grades either. I think sometimes students think teachers can't/shouldn't make mistakes. We're humans after all. I didn't bring this up, but in some other colleges, instructors do print student's names and grades; to put right up on the wall for everyone to see. I don't think that's right. I don't think it's right to rip up artwork in a critique either. I've heard of that being done in the past as well. So I messed up. Messing up is something many of them do on a regular basis - trust me. Still, somehow I feel like I have to earn their respect back again. That awful letter still sits in my mind. There's about 3 people I've talked to here that think I'm making too big of a deal about this. Maybe I am. I like to make things right. I don't like messing up.
6 comments:
You just made me oh so grateful to have our wonderful school librarian that I totally took for granted until now. So thank you for that... :)
As for the professor's mistake you made, I think you did what you could do. Trust me when I say a lot of others wouldn't have apologized, or maybe not even changed it. I worked in Higher Ed for a lot of years, and I loved it, but I know you're unique in being so stressed out about your mistake. I think it's a great indicator that you care about your students and your work. :)
Glad the boys are doing well in school this year. One less thing to have to worry about, right?
So sorry that you made a mistake and have to think about it all the time... I know you didn't mean to do it - hope they will realize it as well soon...
Hope that the librarian gets with the program and realizes she has a job to make an impact to encourage children to learn to read... not to hate even going to the library!
Finally - EBOLA scares the crap out of me
My kids have never talked about the librarian at the school. I don't know if she is good or not. Must not be or they would mention her, I suppose.
I think that's funny you won't eat a pumpkin shaped cookie that tastes like lemon. As long as it tastes good, it could be in any shape it wants lol.
The spreading of Ebola is really worrying..I hope we sure find the best way to address it...
Great to know that your boys are doing well at school. This is our first year at the US and I'm a bit worried with my son Bo. He has a lot to adjust to with the whole new system, language, culture and everything...I sincerely hope he will be okay..
I guess I can't see the big deal of you using the students names to show the grades.... Maybe it would make the ones who have lower grades work a little harder next time.
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