cake or death?

[lolaraincoat]

I had intended to do a year-in-review post, plus also complete a lengthy exegesis of Spike Lee's New Orleans documentary When the Levees Broke (to sum up: wow, wow, wow) but instead I am grading. The second-year survey class is making me suicidal again. We've had the by-now traditional references to "slaves who were badly paid" in the midterms and oh so many more facts which are not. Many of their essays have begun with the dread phrase "In today's society" despite my repeated and specific warnings that if they used that phrase they would be cruelly mocked in front of their peers. They all seem to agree that while everyone has a race, only women have gender; in fact, one student made that idea (and I use the word loosely) the basis of his paper's argument. I have to get through seventeen more of these essays before tomorrow morning's class. Or I guess I could just kill myself now. Augh!