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izmeinaIckle Izzie was recently bitching about boring Professor Binns and forgot to mention what an evil and abominable score she gave him last week on the teacber appraisal forms that are supposed to be anonymous and marked by computers.
Iz thinks - maybe you should be careful - are you really sure that he won't get his boring little paws on those forms? But then on the other hand, what is the point of having such procedures if we are just going to give every incompetent idiot 100%? Usually those sort of creatures never get appraised because they are so insufferable that there is just about no one left in the class by the time the survey thingie comes around
(The teacher we had for our taxation class which in theory is infinitely more boring - Iz would have given him 200% if it was at all possible)
Well. In spite of being a smarmy smirking bore, Iz had to say one good thing. We got our essays back and he gave us a lot of general feedback. Most of it was quite useful and showed that he had spent a lot of time thinking about it.
He complained that the standard of grammar was sadly lacking in many essays and that too many students do not bother to proof read. He also noticed the excessive and uncritical reliance on the Internet and increasing prevalence of the new cut and paste style of academic writing. It is becoming more and more pervasive and has even infected the secondary schools.
I did find it somewhat annoying, his complaints about too much description and not enough technical analysis of the topic when the question specifically requested an essay format. (Iz knew she would be pleading guilty on that charge)
So far so good. But then he started pushing the Izzie buttons.
He began to whinge about how so many students use American spellings in essays and how he finds it so utterly annoying. "This is not America" he kept saying. He also complained about excessive use of American examples in the essays.
Izzie often uses American spellings, not to look cool or hip or whatever or because she is too incompetent to change the settings on the spell checker, but for the very simple reason that in most cases the American spellings are simpler and more logical than their British equivalents.
Too often as a little flobberworm, Iz had seen teachers humiliate and denigrate American students for "BAD" spelling in front of the whole class. Instead of simply saying that it is OK to use the American spelling in the USA but it is not accepted usage here, they just kept going on about it being out and out WRONG and BAD and STUPID and all sorts of nasty insulting insinuations.
Iz thinks any teacher who feels so strongly about the issue should specially request American spellings not to be used.
That is one wonderful thing about the English language. We don't have the monolithic style police a la Alliance Francaise or the Goethe Institut. (I guess English is the Linux of the linguistic world ;))
Well anyway. After that little episode we went on to some revision questions.
The question concerned two companies. Virgin with a market share of $1 billion and Vodaphone with a market share of $500,000. If instead of competing, they formed an alliance they could increase their market share between them to $2 Billion.....and so on and on
There was some questions about surplus and Nash equations and equilibrium and other equally obscure concepts.
So Iz sees a perfect opportunity and innocently asks "Is that an American or a British billion?"
Lucky Professor Binns does not teach Charms or ickle Iz would have been history. The look of fury on his face was just amazing. He knew that he had been got!
The answer of course would be radically different in each scenario.
(Yes the American penchant for exaggeration with numbers really annoys Iz but unfortunately it has prevailed. Iz justs insists on not using the word billion but always thousand million or million million just to make sure there is never any confusion about just what number she has in mind)
From what he said earlier, I knew that he marked down essays with too much description and insufficient analysis so figured that the 70 I was hoping for was already out of the question and it would be more like the lower side of 65. But I was not amused to get a pissy little 57% and was only glad that I did not pass up on the chance to score those BILLION points!
Well...there is still the exam left. That is worth 50% of the overall mark. So it's never too late to catch up.
Izzie will now have to be good for the next three weeks. I cannot decide will I go for an 80 just for my own personal satisfaction or to prove a point.
Pity - it really should have been the most fun subject ever.
Other news. It was supposed to be Python munchies at the Zoo..just like it was last Wednesday. But the keeper didn't have a bag of rats, just a brown stripy slithery creature for us to see. Most peeved indeed, especially as I made the effort to turn up just to see dinner time for my darlings.
I sure do hope that it will not be another five years till I see feeding time in the snakepit again.
Blessed are those who expect nothing. For they shall not be disappointed.
Iz thinks - maybe you should be careful - are you really sure that he won't get his boring little paws on those forms? But then on the other hand, what is the point of having such procedures if we are just going to give every incompetent idiot 100%? Usually those sort of creatures never get appraised because they are so insufferable that there is just about no one left in the class by the time the survey thingie comes around
(The teacher we had for our taxation class which in theory is infinitely more boring - Iz would have given him 200% if it was at all possible)
Well. In spite of being a smarmy smirking bore, Iz had to say one good thing. We got our essays back and he gave us a lot of general feedback. Most of it was quite useful and showed that he had spent a lot of time thinking about it.
He complained that the standard of grammar was sadly lacking in many essays and that too many students do not bother to proof read. He also noticed the excessive and uncritical reliance on the Internet and increasing prevalence of the new cut and paste style of academic writing. It is becoming more and more pervasive and has even infected the secondary schools.
I did find it somewhat annoying, his complaints about too much description and not enough technical analysis of the topic when the question specifically requested an essay format. (Iz knew she would be pleading guilty on that charge)
So far so good. But then he started pushing the Izzie buttons.
He began to whinge about how so many students use American spellings in essays and how he finds it so utterly annoying. "This is not America" he kept saying. He also complained about excessive use of American examples in the essays.
Izzie often uses American spellings, not to look cool or hip or whatever or because she is too incompetent to change the settings on the spell checker, but for the very simple reason that in most cases the American spellings are simpler and more logical than their British equivalents.
Too often as a little flobberworm, Iz had seen teachers humiliate and denigrate American students for "BAD" spelling in front of the whole class. Instead of simply saying that it is OK to use the American spelling in the USA but it is not accepted usage here, they just kept going on about it being out and out WRONG and BAD and STUPID and all sorts of nasty insulting insinuations.
Iz thinks any teacher who feels so strongly about the issue should specially request American spellings not to be used.
That is one wonderful thing about the English language. We don't have the monolithic style police a la Alliance Francaise or the Goethe Institut. (I guess English is the Linux of the linguistic world ;))
Well anyway. After that little episode we went on to some revision questions.
The question concerned two companies. Virgin with a market share of $1 billion and Vodaphone with a market share of $500,000. If instead of competing, they formed an alliance they could increase their market share between them to $2 Billion.....and so on and on
There was some questions about surplus and Nash equations and equilibrium and other equally obscure concepts.
So Iz sees a perfect opportunity and innocently asks "Is that an American or a British billion?"
Lucky Professor Binns does not teach Charms or ickle Iz would have been history. The look of fury on his face was just amazing. He knew that he had been got!
The answer of course would be radically different in each scenario.
(Yes the American penchant for exaggeration with numbers really annoys Iz but unfortunately it has prevailed. Iz justs insists on not using the word billion but always thousand million or million million just to make sure there is never any confusion about just what number she has in mind)
From what he said earlier, I knew that he marked down essays with too much description and insufficient analysis so figured that the 70 I was hoping for was already out of the question and it would be more like the lower side of 65. But I was not amused to get a pissy little 57% and was only glad that I did not pass up on the chance to score those BILLION points!
Well...there is still the exam left. That is worth 50% of the overall mark. So it's never too late to catch up.
Izzie will now have to be good for the next three weeks. I cannot decide will I go for an 80 just for my own personal satisfaction or to prove a point.
Pity - it really should have been the most fun subject ever.
Other news. It was supposed to be Python munchies at the Zoo..just like it was last Wednesday. But the keeper didn't have a bag of rats, just a brown stripy slithery creature for us to see. Most peeved indeed, especially as I made the effort to turn up just to see dinner time for my darlings.
I sure do hope that it will not be another five years till I see feeding time in the snakepit again.
Blessed are those who expect nothing. For they shall not be disappointed.
