Well, I'm one of those students who thought anything less than a B was failing, so the finer points of distinction between 50% and 0 passed me by. Always thought it was stupid to have one 0 skew your whole class, though.

the point of diplomacy to establish cordial relations with other countries?

8-5 only, or at receptions. If you choose to go out socially, you're clearly one of those treasonous liberals Bush is always going on about. But really, most of the non-frat stuff went away with the Cold War.

I realized, thinking about this, that it's one of the reasons I'm not having a good tour. I'm so not Greek. I'm like the polar opposite of Greek. So I've had jack-all ability to make friends here. (And I'm also the polar opposite of most of the Americans at the embassy, and the other missions like the Brits don't really speak to us here). Every other place I've been, I've been able to make a couple friends at least, get engaged with the local scene. Part of it is I'm older, and don't enjoy the nightclub scene, and part of it was being pregnant, but most of it is just my complete inability to connect with the Greeks.

I did have one minor success today - I left my car with the garage attendant, and told him I'd be back in one hour...and I used the right word for "one!" It's "ena" if the noun is neuter or masculine, but "mia" if it's feminine. I always think "ena" because it sounds like "one" and "uno" and "ein," but "ora" is feminine...so today I said "mia ora" and didn't get the talking-horse look!

Go me! I've lived here 10 months and can count to one!

I should, by the way, be writing my reflection rather than self-sabotaging by chatting about other teachers' practices when students undercut themselves.

Why An All-One-Length Bob Is A BAD Idea

Dude, I had that haircut! I think it might have been the same year!

I think all-one-length bobs are good only for women with straight, sleek hair. On any woman with any bit of wave/curl/even frizz, it turns into Pyramid Head.

Freshman year of college, Why An All-One-Length Bob Is A BAD Idea (and please do not speak of the dress; it was 1990, damn it): [link]

Hey, I had that hair too!

Always thought it was stupid to have one 0 skew your whole class, though.

Others have said it, but it really depends on what the zero is for. Missing one of six assignments v. missing the major research project, etc.

At McGill there were a couple of classes known by and for their grading structure.

"Something or other Astronomy 300? Why are you taking that?"

"100% paper."

The 100% paper and 100% final classes were pretty well known as ways to grab a few extra credits for the semester if your strengths ran that way without having to go to many classes or worry about a bunch of assignments throughout the term.

There was an engineering class at my school that included a discussion of a gadget that would act kind of like a Maxwell's Demon, but it had to be precisely machined to work. The prof said if anyone could make one it'd be worth an A in the course. One of the students happened to be an expert machinist. I think he was up for about a week juast working on the gadget, but he didn't have to do a thing for that class the rest of the semester.

My Inclusion teacher was talking last night about "cheating the rubric". In theory, it would be possible to get enough points for a B without doing any of the assignments, so he added a catch that missing more than one lesson or assignment would lower your final grade by a full letter.

In fact, my first year of graduate school, I didn't bother doing the homework for the final section of one of my classes, because I knew I could not only get enough points without the homework, but could skip the part of the final which asked about that section of the class (one of those "answer four out of six" tests).

I have e-mailed my one British friend who sometimes lives in London. She is a tour guide, so she could be anywhere in England or Europe really at any time. I need to also call a friend in California, because I know she has lots of friends in London.

I won't copy it all here, but I just had to say how much I loved Cindy's Teacup Guy post! Loved loved loved it! It made me smile this morning. I may show it to Dave after the movies tonight if he is in a can take a joke mood, which he has not been lately because of job stuff.

Upside: I've lost a total of 59.5 lbs

Go, Empress!

IOwhinyN, I have a splitting headache today, and I really need to get moving so that dinner can be ready when Teacup Guy gets here so we can get to the movies on time. Sin City is finally at the cheap theatre, so we are going to see that tonight. We missed it when it was in the big theatres.

In silly news, I spilled soda on my keyboard a while back and now my open parentheses key will not work. I miss parentheses.

sj, as long as the parentheses are in your heart, they are never really gone.

Until then, you can borrow some of mine!! (((((((((((((((((((((((

Just had what I think was a really good interview. Even though, during the interview, while I was referring to a document on my computer, I accidentally disconnected the battery, and then had to fill about five minutes of time while I reconnected it and booted up the computer again. But I think this interview went really well -- the person said that I sounded like a really good fit for the program, and said that I sounded great for the job I was interviewing for, and asked if I'd be interested in taking a different job at that program if I didn't get this one, and said that, if I didn't get anything this time, I'd definitely be on the list in case something opens up later on. So, fingers crossed.

That sounds excellent, Hil!