{"id":427,"date":"2005-05-04T16:11:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-04T16:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=427"},"modified":"2005-05-04T16:11:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-04T16:11:00","slug":"427","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=427","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Who am I, and what am I doing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s a good thing that the semester is finished, because my brain is finished too.<\/p>\n

My university sets a different class schedule for finals week than for the other weeks of the semester. Each class meets just once, for two and one half hours. The times are calculated to avoid scheduling conflicts.<\/p>\n

At 10:30 yesterday morning I walked from my office into the m\u00eal\u00e9e of students in the corridor. Some of my own students were standing along the walls outside a locked classroom: there were Tom, Gino, Megan, Cheryl . . . <\/p>\n

“Hi,” I said,”Do you need me to open that door for you? Do you have a final exam in there?”<\/p>\n

I was getting blank looks, looks that asked, “Is he messing with us?” One of the students reminded me, with polite exasperation, that our<\/em> class had a final, right then and there.<\/p>\n

Oops.<\/p>\n

That is a small class, and their “final exam” consisted of presenting Web-based writing projects, so all I had to do was step into another room and grab a portable LCD projector.<\/p>\n

Back in January, before I came down with the flu and evidently lost brain cells, I had written and distributed my syllabus and class calendar. Earlier this month, I realized that I had listed an incorrect date for the final exam, so I announced the correct date in class and sent all the students an e-mail too. But I forgot to correct my own appointment book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who am I, and what am I doing? It’s a good thing that the semester is finished, because my brain is finished too. My university sets a different class schedule for finals week than for the other weeks of the semester. Each class meets just once, for two and one half hours. The times are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-427","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":329,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=329","url_meta":{"origin":427,"position":0},"title":"Secret Thrills of Teaching Rhetoric\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Secret Thrills of Teaching Rhetoric I teach a class each semester on advanced composition and rhetoric, using this book as one of the texts. The students are mostly education majors who must take the course as their last exposure to a writing class before they are turned loose on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":779,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=779","url_meta":{"origin":427,"position":1},"title":"A sign of the season","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"How do you know that Yule is coming? Is it the Christmas music in stores? Is it the Sun setting at 4 p.m., which means I have to stop my project of staining the exterior walls of the new cabin addition?Or is realizing that you are standing beside a photocopier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Yule\"","block_context":{"text":"Yule","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=yule"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3818,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3818","url_meta":{"origin":427,"position":2},"title":"When Is a Monk not a Monk?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"When he or she is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Given that this is a religious-studies class (academic, not doctrinal) at a secular university,\u00a0 I thought that the professor had an interesting idea. The ... course on monastic life and asceticism gives students at the University of Pennsylvania\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":575,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=575","url_meta":{"origin":427,"position":3},"title":"In dreaming, truth?A couple of\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"In dreaming, truth?A couple of nights ago I dreamt I was talking with the dean of the university's library, with whom I have generally had a good collegial relationship.Teaching, I told her in the dream, was like getting married and divorced twice in every year.On waking, I thought that that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":577,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=577","url_meta":{"origin":427,"position":4},"title":"Semester's endI wander around to\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Semester's endI wander around to departmental offices and snack on pizzelles and potica. In a previous job, I was told that no wedding in Pueblo, Florence, or Ca\u00f1on City was valid if pizzelles were not served at the reception. (This rule does not apply in Penrose, Colo., where the bride\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":972,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=972","url_meta":{"origin":427,"position":5},"title":""Sheer Terror"","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Retired University of Colorado professor John Carnes (Philosophy) tells all in an interview:1. Being a teacher is like being a farmer; your life follows certain cycles. How did you feel whenever a new semester came around?Sheer terror! Every class constitutes a performance -- a 16-week performance -- and you have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}