Finished grading, and submitted final grades. Now come the "Please, can I have a higher grade?" emails. One kid has already emailed me three times. I've said no three times. I'm waiting for a fourth email.

Owww. My body is being stupid. Every physical therapist I've worked with has commented that my tense-muscle response to pain is really absurdly exaggerated. Usually, when I'm in physical therapy to work on a particular joint that's been hurting, the first several weeks are spent just getting the muscles around it loose enough so that we can work on it. Right now, I'm in my typical allergy response cycle: sinus pain leads to facial muscles tightening, which clamps down on my eustachian tubes and makes pressure build up in my ear, which makes my ear hurt, which makes the facial muscles tighten even more. And meanwhile, my neck muscles also start tightening, which throws my posture off, which pushes my shoulder a little out of joint, which makes all the muscles around my shoulder start tightening to try to keep it from dislocating, etc. Just took some Vicodin to try to ease the pain and get everything to relax. Also some Mucinex-D, to try to get the sinuses to stop hurting, so that this won't just start all over again tomorrow.

TENSing my shoulder now. It's helping some. The pads aren't in quite the right places, but I can't twist my other arm to get them right without popping out my shoulder.

Ow! I hope you get some relief soon, Hil.

Thanks. I took some Vicodin, and I'm watching Mulan for some distraction.

I have dropped off the face of the planet getting this show up and running. At this point I'm so tired I can't think straight, but I need to finish up some work in the studio. Night A of Sci-Fest opened tonight. Now we just need to finish tech for night B before next Tuesday and then I think I get to find out what sleep is again. At the moment there are almost 700 cues in the main project running the show, and we have 5 more shows to go.

I'm feeling a lot better this morning. Definitely glad I don't need to teach, but well enough to walk a few blocks to drop off some stuff at the food bank downtown. Now, to deal with more emails from students who don't like their grades.

Now I feel bad for making Bobby write to his instructor when he has had issues with his test results. On SEVERAL occasions the teacher has ended up changing it after responding that he was right and that was also a correct answer. And then fixing the rest of the class grades too. This is likely the result of the effort that goes into preparation of your level of tests and the testing prepared by teachers at the state college that are working on maybe getting a teaching certificate someday. The range of quality in his instructors has been significant.

I have also responding to his bitching on scores by responding 'I told you that wasn't what he was looking for' when that is appropriate. That happens a bunch too!

A student wants me to add four points to his grade for "participation" because he showed up at class almost every day. That's not extra credit -- that's bare minimum expectation.

Now I feel bad for making Bobby write to his instructor when he has had issues with his test results. On SEVERAL occasions the teacher has ended up changing it after responding that he was right and that was also a correct answer.

That's different. What I'm getting isn't "I think the answer I put down was actually correct, and you marked it wrong." I'm getting, "I need a higher grade. Can you give me a higher grade?"