It’s that wonderful time in the semester where the rough drafts are due.
–  It is my job to tell a bunch of adults that their grammar is fairly sub-par in the worst cases and passible in the best.

I’ve learned through experience and time, a lot of instructors don’t approach the grammar issue.  Maybe they’re embarrassed…  I know I am when I get something wrong when it should be right… Maybe they don’t care.  Or, maybe, it’s just to much trouble.  We all know the knowledge retention between classes is fairly low for most individuals in the lower 100 college courses.

—   I don’t blame the students for that.
Low level college courses tend not to have any rhyme or reason in the order they’re taken.  Grammar can also be inconsistent between instructors.  I guess it’s just the nature of the beast.

Still, I have to keep in mind that students are adults.
They work.  They have lives.   They are (mostly) in college for the very best intentions.
I really respect the for that, but I can’t help but bash my head against the desk when golden sentences like these show up:

As i stated earlier in the letter, these are just some of my opinions, and I appreciate your concern for the flexibility and I hope that my agreement letter, and input helps out the company, and we can all work to grow as a great and standard company.

I’m not a grammar Nazi.  Well, maybe I was when I started on my adjunct path, but I’m not so much any more.   It just took way to much time, energy, and buckets of frustration.

I just try my very best to make students aware of their grammar habits in the least threatening way possible because I don’t want to get nasty emails.

(—>  Is grammar Nazi still a thing?  Given the way Nazi has been tossed around in the media, I don’t want to be associated with ‘Nazi’ at all – even in a joking way.  There needs to be a grammar Nazi replacement.  ***  It’s automatically capitalizing Nazi.   That’s not my doing. ***     Grammar fascist doesn’t sound any better.   Maybe grammar galactic empire?  It’s the opposite of the Rebels in Star Wars?  The storm troopers are Nazi-ish.  “Galactic empire” might be far enough away from Nazi to fit.)

Anyway…  rambling aside…  the student still could – at least – capitalize the first “I” in the sentence.   Heck, auto-correct should have fixed it for her.

I know this probably seems a bit nit-picky for some.   That’s fine.   But, I’ve taught college English courses for more years than I’d like to admit.   Still, little and fully correctable mistakes like “I” is akin to having a spider crawl into my mouth while sleeping.   I can’t prevent it and I never know when/if it is going to happen.

Bleh.

Other than having some twenty more rough drafts to go through this weekend, everything is going okay.

I had an iron infusion today.   I think that’s my fifth (sixthed?) one in the past two years.   I have another next Thursday.  I hate needles, especially ones that stay in my arm for a couple of hours.   My only solace is that the snacks are good there.

The podiatrist says I need special shoes that run about $100+ each because of my high arches.  I’m really shy about paying that much, even if I did have that much, but I like to walk without thinking “ouch” too.

Tomorrow, I will spend time with my sister in a city up north.    I think she wants to see Ocean’s Eight.  I’d rather see Hereditary, but I’d probably seeing that alone.   No one – not even Jason – like those kinds of movies.   That’s okay.  I don’t need to hold his hand anyways.  After cancer and everything, I can handle it.

I kind of feel like I owe myself a movie anyway since I didn’t make it out to A Quiet Place.

I haven’t over ate today – yet.  It’s approaching 9pm and I’m doing the best I can to stay away from stuff.   Well, I’ll have something to snack on, but it’s just going to be a ‘snack’ and it won’t make me feel guilty.   That’ll come tomorrow with my sister.   I think she wants to go to a steak place for lunch.

Anyway, lots of love to everyone.

Have a good weekend.