Day 4 - 59 -- Plans Go Awry

Well -- if nothing else, today was interesting. When I use that word, I often think of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." The midterm exam that couldn't be written two weeks ago due to the campus being closed for the blizzard, had been rescheduled for today. I did the basic arithmetic to find out how many exams I needed to lay out given the numbers that were unable to write today. When laying out the exams, I put out two extra. There were still three students without papers. Luckily I had a wonderful colleague who had come to help get the room set up. She offered to make copies while I got the group started. Also, luckily no class was using that room directly after our exam, so the time it took for the 136 to hand things in and some extra time to write due to the delayed start could be accommodated. Now I had a list noting there were 135 in the class even though 136 wrote and 4 other were elsewhere. Checking the computer listing again after the exam showed that indeed there were 140 in the class. How the computer and I managed to miscommunicate is beyond me, but it did make me doubt my cognitive abilities more than once today.

Mistakes happen and may be caused by more than one person or thing. I'll apologize to them all in class on Thursday and take responsibility for my part in this and will continue my love-hate relationship with the electronic way of managing life. Mistakes can bring out positives -- and on reflection, I realized that I tended to panic when there were more students than papers. There were several ways to work through this one that could have worked had I been there on my own. I needed to move into problem solving mode more quickly and out of the what happened and what did I do wrong thinking and muttering place. <smile>.  Again, I am so thankful to have had a colleague and friend with me when this error occurred -- regardless of where the blame may lie.

My thoughts of brain malfunction today brought several lyric lines to mind from an older song. They ask several of the questions I've asked myself. The female singer was one with an amazing voice and style. Enjoy!

Crazy -- Patsy Cline