one of those days...

i was so proud of myself for being up early today and all productive and stuff... turns out that doesn't guarantee a smooth day.

when i went out to my car at 8 this morning, i had the fortune of having a parking ticket... for being parked outside my own house! apparently they thought i was too close to the intersection, even though i've parked there many times before, and the curb isn't painted, etc., etc., etc.... leigh's gotten a parking ticket there before, as has colleen's sister erin when she'd visited... but i never had, and i thought i was up far enough... apparently not... oi.

i don't know how much it is yet... the traffic violations office was closed when i was finally free to call, and it didn't work when i tried to look it up online.,... i have a month to work it out... we shall see.

anyhow, the rest of my day was delightfully spent in a calculus final exam grading party.

for those of you who have never TAed or taught a mass college course, here's how a grading party works. since there were 50 sections of 30 students each in calculus 1 at rutgers this fall, that makes 1500 finals to grade. to make somewhat of a uniform grading system across all the sections, all the students take the same exam, and all the TAs and professors grade the exams together in one day. each TA or prof is assigned to a particular problem, so somewhere in the ballpark of 15 people grade different parts of each paper before it's done. the curve (what makes an A, what makes a B, etc.) for the course is determined by how all 1500 students score on the final. about 1/3 of their final grade is determined by this test and 2/3 by the professor's exams/quizzes/etc. throughout the semester. so regardless of how hard or easy your prof is, you're required to demonstrate the same set of skills at the end.

nothing is ever a perfect system, but this works out all right.

all day (9am til 5:30pm), i was sitting at a table in a lounge of the building next door to the math building grading derivative questions. when i finished with that, nearly everything else was graded too, so i helped a little with some other problems, and otherwise we got to add a lot of numbers.

at least one student (not mine) turned in a totally blank exam, which is an automatic 0/200... one of my students had a 198/200, and i saw one 199 as well... no 200s though. it was a tough exam.

that basically sums up my day.

now, i'm packed to go out of town tomorrow, and am watching "deal or no deal". it's actually kinda intriguing. howie mandel, with his head shaved and just the tiny bit of facial hair makes me think vaguely of pastor mike -- my old memphis pastor... it's kinda funny.

the game itself is kinda like the monty hall problem complexified by a LOT.

(remember the monty hall problem is that you have a car behind one of three doors and like goats behind the other two. you pick a door, and then the host opens a door you didn't choose that has a goat. then, they let you either stay with your original pick or change to the other door. statistically you actually have a higher probability of winning the car if you switch to the other door, which totally blows people's minds... it is a little crazy even though it's true...)

i didn't plan to get intrigued, but really, this is an interesting game even if it isn't horribly complicated of an idea.

in other news,
colleen gave me craisins for the drive tomorrow as part of my christmas present... that made me happy. :)

where am i going?

tomorrow to pittsburgh and wednesday to memphis... getting up super early both days, tomorrow to get leigh to the train station by 7:30 and just driving off from there, wednesday to try to get to memphis in time for 7pm church. it'll be a *crazy* week.

in the meantime, happy break for real now... be parties one and all!
:P