hello professor

this is ********** in your ********** class, according to a friend in the class that you gave back the exam 2 grades in class which i asked you for it before i left the class on monday, you told me you didnt have them graded yet and do not know when you will, may i please know my first exam grade(after corrections) and the 2nd exam grade please?
if possible, i would like to know my average up to this point before the final exam so i can estimate how much i need to get on final in order to get an A in your class, since i do not know any assignment grades after the midterm drop point. it was very hard for me with school work this semester. Regardless of my (medical condition), i kept up with the assignment due days (except ch9 hw, my (medical treatment) prevented me to do them on time).

greatly appreciated if i could get my average in the class.

Dear Student,

You are correct. Your class’s tests were not yet graded when you asked on Monday. They were graded and returned on Wednesday in class. However, you chose to not come to class on Wednesday. Your test, along with those of the other students who were not in class, is in my office.

It is Friday night, I am at home, and I am not going back to my office until Monday. I do not have a copy of my gradebook at home, nor do I memorize each student’s test grade as I enter them. Therefore, I will not be able to inform you of your grade until Monday.

As for giving you your average in the class, there is no such thing as an “average” in my classes. Your grade is calculated with a rather complex formula which weights assignments, tests, and the final exam differently, and at this point would only tell you your grade for the class if you made a zero on the final.

Rather than worry about “how much you need to get on the final,” I suggest you worry about making sure you have completely mastered the material that will be on the final exam. That way, you can ensure that if it is mathematically possible for you to earn a grade of 90 or above in the class, you will do so.

Sincerely,

Your Professor

My Latest Special Snowflake is a post from: Art of the Firebird. Some Rights Reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

• A huge education. Larry demonstrated many tricks and techniques that I had never before seen, and explained some things I had seen before in a new way so that I finally “got it.” I sort of understood the idea behind linear encasing already, but was missing one little aspect — the very acute angle of the casing rod relative to the bead. Now I can do it (though I still need practice, duh). I’m also totally sold now on using boro punties for making cane and latticcino, because my hands can twist the punties much easier than mandrels.
• An impressively-run workshop. Southern Flames knows how to do things right! The organization provides bagels & cream cheese if you don’t have time for breakfast; the class TA takes lunch orders and brings your lunch back so you don’t lose so much time going out to get it; various little things like mandrel holders, stickers to put on your mandrels, water cups, and so on are already set up. Oh, and Carl was a most excellent TA.
• A really, really frustrating experience. Okay, so I was the least-experienced glass person in the class, and it did show at times. I was working on a Minor burner, when I run a Bethlehem Piranha at home, so my torch wasn’t always doing what I expected. I didn’t have quite enough elbow room so had to be careful of the space around me. Possibly the worst thing, though, was the floor right behind my chair — every time someone walked on it, it jiggled, jiggling me, usually right when I was trying to precisely place a dot on my bead. I’m dot-challenged enough anyway, so I don’t need any further hindrance. In the end, of the six beads I attempted, only one came out fairly decent. Four others were more or less showing the technique but far from acceptable, and the last one…well, the Night Sky bead went into the water cup after first the bead release broke and then the bead itself broke.Some things are just better attempted at home on familiar ground!
• A veritable feast of eye candy. Larry’s beads are to die for. I wish I could have afforded to buy more than one. I’ll just have to practice making my own variations.

I did indeed get my money’s and time’s worth out of the weekend, and I would highly recommend Larry’s classes to any lampworker. Any problems with the class were strictly due to the student, not the teacher, LOL.

Larry Scott Class is a post from: Art of the Firebird. Some Rights Reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tanya was my closest friend in graduate school.  She was several years younger than I and an undergraduate, but it didn’t matter — all of us computer science women tended to hang out together.  We shared a love of crafts, especially stitchery, cats, and cooking; we had similar personalities and senses of humor.  We were lab partners for several courses and worked exceptionally well together.  When one of us would get sick of the grind, we’d take a break for a bit and go shopping and do girl stuff.

I moved back to Atlanta and eventually finished my degree; she graduated with both her B.S. and M.S. and moved to Columbus to work for what is now Lucent Technologies.  Neither of us was that good at constantly staying in touch, but every year or two we’d touch base via email and get caught up on each other’s lives, almost as if it was still the early 1980s in Cleveland.

I had not heard about her illness, so it was shocking to see her name as I read through the magazine.  It has taken me days to be able to write this entry, and I still have a hard time realizing that I’ll never see her smiling face in this lifetime.  She’s another person that I’ll always wish that my husband had gotten to meet, just to know another part of my prior life.

Tanya, you made the world a better place in the too-short time you were with us, and you are missed.

A Life Cut Too Short is a post from: Art of the Firebird. Some Rights Reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Of particular note were the comments from the Belgian teenagers as they were interviewed about their performance relative to that of American high schoolers on an international standardized test. “Compared to our regular tests, this was easy.” “The American kids must be stupid.”

Stossel’s pinpointing of the causes of our failing school system was, of course, oversimplified. He neglected the role of the media in shaping today’s society, and more importantly the role of the parents at home, in favor of pushing the pro-voucher, pro-choice solution (which I do agree with) and calling the teachers’ unions to task for their complicity in perpetuating the problems.

Still, his message is dead-on and needed — I see the results of the failure of our schools to do their job every week, four days a week, in my own classroom.

A must-see on TV is a post from: Art of the Firebird. Some Rights Reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Jeez!!! She is still teaching? Amazing how that kind of teacher are not yet fired! WORST teacher I have ever had! DO not take her, SHE will make you HATE computer science. She basically gives a lecture and does not give a damn about you. Plus she is horrible looking ( her hair style is disgusting) .….

What can you say?

I should take this seriously??? is a post from: Art of the Firebird. Some Rights Reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.