Tuesday Tidbits

• Got my annual evaluation yesterday and my dean had nothing but praise for me. Cuz I'm awesome. On the evaluation itself, he even wrote that I am one of "the most effective instructors in the department." Boo-ya!
• I got an invitation to participate in the Oxford Round Table -- a yearly conference held in Oxford each year -- since the subject this year is 19th Century Women's Writing (I teach a literature class that focuses on 19th C Women Novelists). I got incredibly excited about it until I saw that the conference is held July 5-10. Ummmm, I'm gonna be about 36 weeks pregnant then and flying across the Atlantic is really not possible. Dammit!
• While I was grading essays yesterday, I found a plagiarized essay. The whole thing is not directly lifted, but entire paragraphs come from uncited sources, and other parts are summarized from uncited sources. I emailed the student and asked him to come meet with me privately so we can discuss this.
• My stated plagiarism policy on my syllabus is that if a student "knowingly submits any work that is not his or hers and does not cite it correctly" then the penalty is automatic course failure. But generally, I like to conference with the student first to try and understand their situation and offer alternatives.
• But I would really love to fail this guy. He's constantly absent, often late, and sits there in class with this attitude that just says, "Go ahead and try to to teach me something." However, I have to be equitable.
• Yesterday, when Jerry got home from work, he found this little Daschund without a collar roaming around the parking lot in front of our building. Not wanting to just leave it in the parking lot (he was afraid she'd get hit by a car) but not wanting to bring her inside (who knows how a strange dog will act with Scooter), he went door to door in our community and eventually found the unit she belonged to.
• Apparently, the woman who answered the door said her children, who were fishing by the canal, were supposed to be watching the dog. Clearly, they weren't.
• What gets me though is that the dog had no collar on, thus no tags on. If she'd had a collar with tags, we could have just called the phone number or gone to the address. Sometimes I think people can be so careless with their pets.
• We had a pretty stellar performance at bowling last night, and in our 2nd game, we rocked the hiz-ouse! Unfortunately, we kinda tanked in our 3rd game, but we still won quite a few points and we each had some good games.
• Today, I have lots to do: Classes to teach, then errands to run, then a house to clean. We have friends arriving tomorrow evening from out of town, and they're staying the night with us Wednesday night before we all cruise on Thursday.
• So I guess that means I gots to go!
• Check ya later dudes!