Tuesday, December 18, 2007

This just in

Last night Nina read and graded and ran the calculator for sixty students. Twenty-four of them hate her this morning because they failed their English class. Right now Nina is in Soho reading portfolios for a class called "Effective Commnication." She cannot communicate (effectively) with anyone about anything else (that would include emails and phone calls, just to be clear) until she finishes reading these portfolios and running the calculator explaining to people why "frikkin'" is unacceptable* in college writing (even though it is a step up from "fucking.")

Nina will post again in the usual manner when this debauch of grading is over. Etc.

*When Nina's stress level is unacceptable she refers to herself in the third person because that way it seems like all the sleeplessness and sugar-eating and frikkin terrible essays are happening to someone else.

9 comments:

ByJane said...

Jane sends her deepest, most sincere frickin sympathies to Nina in this, her time of need.

utenzi said...

I know, I know. They're supposed to use friggin' aren't they? LOL

Newsy said...

Make more frikkin mittens, those ingrates don't need grades, fail them all. You know you want to.

Avitable said...

You failed over a third of your class? Ouch.

Nina said...

byjane, thank you for stopping by and commiserating. I think you've been on the wrong side of the gradebook before too, hm?

utenzi, excellent point. It should totally be friggin'.

newsy, you are target four.

avitable, I routinely fail a third of my students, sometimes more like half. It's freshman comp and these kids are not future English majors.

Avitable said...

I don't think I've ever been in a class that was like that. That's crazy!

Effortlessly Average said...

Ok, so "frikkin" in unacceptable. But how about using "and" when describing something you're going to try to do? For example, "I'm going to try AND go to your lame-ass party." Shouldn't it be "I'll try TO go to your lame-ass party?"

heh

Nina said...

Effortlessly average: YES. It should be "I'll try to go to your lame ass party." But people make that mistake all the time. *sigh.*

Effortlessly Average said...

I knew it! So you're saying I'd be in the right, grammatically, if I were to smack the next person who says "Try and see if you can..."?