A Clean Desk

There's really something to be said about leaving the office for the weekend with a cleaned desk. I have never, ever managed to do so before. But for some reason this year, I've done it twice now. Feels very satisfying.

I finished grading the first batch of assignments from my online tech writers: for the first time *ever* in my teaching career, a student earned a perfect score for her first assignment. Stupendous. I also had a bunch that earned 90% of the points -- also great. Only three of 23 who failed (one with a zero, even though he turned the assignment in!), so this semester is feeling pretty good. So far. :-)

My Comp 1 classes are very different from each other, despite the fact that they're both afternoon classes and both have full enrollment: the MW class is full of high school kids who text during class, fool around with each other becuase they know each other. I have to be a mom in that class, which I hate.

The TTh class has working adults, older and more disciplined, who do their work diligently and with humor. It's a fun group -- more diverse, too: a fellow from Palestine who already has a BA, a couple of Somali students, four or five Hmong students, a woman from India or Pakistan, another from Laos. It's just so cool when Nirmala and Mustafa collaborate on a piece of writing, or Blia and Jehad. What a great country we live in.