Sick...

I know it's been forever since I posted here but it's been that kind of semester.

Currently I am sick. Not awful but not great either. Here is the thing that people don't realize about us professor types. When we get sick, we still have to work. Yes we get loads of "vacation" time and our schedules are really flexible but at the same time, when the donuts have to get made, they have to get made. This is ever more true when you have 1000 students. If I skip a class because I have the sniffles then 1000 students miss out on what I am supposed to be teaching them (which, of course, is the most important thing in the world!). It's possible to get a "sub" if another prof is willing to step in. But finding people who are available and are OK in front of 500 people and know what to teach is not that easy. There are basically 2 other people I'd trust with that and they both teach the same time I do.

So we have to tough it out. And believe me, I know other people have much harder jobs that they have to show up to sick as well. Still, it ain't fun talking for 2 straight hours with "the bubons" as John Stewart would say. My voice barely made it through classes today.

All my students have been sick too. Since I measure attendance/class participation with an iClicker, their sickness is my headache. I have a standard "three free absences" policy but that does not dissuade students from trying to get the absences excused so that they don't count toward those three (so that those three can be used when they go away from the weekend or feel like sleeping in). What this means for me is an avalanche of e-mail from the students as well as the deans (who send out excused absence e-mails) as well as notes from Student Health. I know I don't have to but I keep these in case a student ends up being within, say 4/100ths of a point from the next higher grade and the one class they missed will make the difference. Just another case where I need to learn to be more of a hardass.

I'm gonna take a little nap now. Yeah, I know most people can't take a nap on the job. Hey, there is a reason I spent like 18,000 years in school.