Occasional Tales

Examinations Law. It’s true. I finished the second-year options some time ago and have been trying to find ways of filling in time. So far this term, that hasn’t been difficult because we’ve had various interruptions. The mocks, for example, were stretched out to over a week, and then there was Qingming, but that leaves three weeks of time filling. I used this week on a deliberately long quiz about the text types because they’re the thing that needs the most revision. I’m going to do a text type-of-the-week kind of thing, focusing on the more common ones. The biggest bother is the HL class because that has two extra periods a week. They’re already a group of pupils who will rapidly be consigned to the dustbin of history as one of the generally more obnoxious and pointless classes that I’ve ever had the misery to deal with. In one period last week, I tried to get the feeling that they weren’t such a bad lot, but failed to produce any such sense. Some of them are smug, some of...

When students can't make their minds up. We finished yesterday's story with the stupid dog getting itself drowned. It seems that Professor Purple's students were less inclined to be charitable about the dog after the first occasion. But the next day one of them reads out a statement that the prof. flouted his fundamental duty to save the life of a sentient being. Sentient? It's a dog and a very stupid dog at that. It seems that Professor Purple is going to be damned for having done and done not. He rescues the dog – they complain; he doesn't rescue the dog – they complain. I must admit that this is the sort of irrational response I'd expect from the more hysterical members of the student body. Anyway, the result of all the whining is a bunch of protests. What did the professor miss? Well, prof., you should've done what I suggested yesterday. By removing the dog to a place where it either couldn't get into trouble or to a place where it'd become someo...