On the positive side, though, is that out of 46 students who handed in the total of 16 written assignments each this semester, only one student tried to plagiarize on a single assignment. And this was a student who missed most of the course. Everybody else struggled with the material honestly and without Googling anything.

Thirty-nine out of 46 students did quite well. I think this is a very good result for an intensive summer course where we cover the material of 15 weeks in 5.

And the biggest prize of the year goes to:

In 711 Muslims invaded the Iberian Peninsula and soon conquered most of Latin America. They subjected the tribes that lived there before (Visigoths, Aztecs and Incas) and established a culture of tolerance. Everybody in Europe became every interested in what was going on in medieval Latin America in terms of knowledge. The King Alfonso X created the best school of translation in the Latin American (Spanish) city of Toledo.

I left this one for last because I knew I would find something like this there. It goes on like this for pages. Not a glimmer of a realization that Latin America and Spain might be different places ever appears in those pages.

I’m definitely due for a break from teaching.

From another final exam:

The Inquisition was the Muslims’ way to police each other and punish everybody who didn’t practice Islam correctly. It was established by the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabel. They forced masses of Jews to convert to Islam and those who refused were kicked out of Spain.

. . . that is doing well in terms of democracy, culture, women’s rights and gay rights is Spain,” I learned from a student’s final exam.

And this is very mystifying (from another final exam):

Latin American thinkers of the early XXth century were afraid the US would victimize Latin America just like it victimized many other Caucasian nations.

All I can say is, “Huh??”

As a little girl, I always listened in on the stories adult women shared. The leitmotif of those stories was the perennial need to put up with things.

“Every Friday my husband gets drunk, beats me and the kids, and throws us out of the house. But I’ve got to put up with this,” Auntie Tanya would sigh.

“Yes, you do,” the female chorus would confirm.

“My husband gave me another STD,” Auntie Katya would share. “This is the third one this year. But I’ve got to put up with this.”

“Yes, you do,” the female chorus agreed.

“I have to get another abortion,” Auntie Alla would say. “This will be abortion #34. The OB-GYN told me not to come back the last time I saw her. But what can I do if my husband hates condoms? I’ve got to put up with this.”

“Yes, you do!” the female chorus sang ecstatically.

“Mommy, why do Auntie Tanya, Auntie Katya, Auntie Alla and all the other aunties put up with all those things?” I would ask.

“Because there are women,” the explanation always was. “That’s what women do. You’ll understand when you grow up.”

“But, Mommy, you never put up with anything.”

“Well, no, but women usually do. Among the Jewish people, there is this tradition where men thank God every day for not making them women.”

“But, Mommy, why don’t women stop putting up with things and then thank God for making them women?”

“This is just how things have always been. You will understand when you grow up.”

I decided then and there never to put up with anything.

[To be continued. . .]

OK, I have found an absolute winner. In all the years of my teaching, this is the best ever:

From the XIth century on, most of the Iberian Peninsula was controlled by the Almoravids and the Almohads who were Burberry. These Burberries waged constant warfare against each other and the Iberian Christians.

Tell me this is not the best.

I don’t think I can continue grading after this. I’m afraid of what I might find.

Stille left this link to a very weird tumblr on the Soviet post-war customs:

In Soviet Union women participating in WWII were erased from history, remaining as the occasional anecdote of a female sniper or simply as medical staff or, at best, radio specialists. The word “front-line girl” (frontovichka) became a terrible insult, synonimous to “whore”. Hundreds thousand of girls who went to war to protect their homeland with their very lives, who came back injured or disabled, with medals for valor, had to hide it to protect themselves from public scorn.

I saw how many people linked to this bout of weirdness and decided to write about it.

What the tumblr says is completely ridiculous. War veterans of both genders were and still are venerated and celebrated. It has been so drilled into all of us that elderly people with medals are heroes that we see them as nearly mythical creatures. Disrespecting a WWII veteran, either male or female, was and is the greatest taboo. The word frontovichka was and is a word of the highest respect. Nobody concealed having fought in the war because there were all kinds of perks and benefits associated with that status.

The most touching Soviet movies about WWII are those that have to do with female heroism in the war. (Here is one example.) Erased from history? This is just bizarre because it’s the exact opposite of what happened.

I think the tumblr’s author confuses female soldiers with “front-line wives”, women who went to the front-lines to live with married generals and high military command. These women lived in absolute luxury and never saw any military action. Not that anybody persecuted them or “erased” them form anywhere either.

Don’t trust tumblr, folks. It has very weird moments.

I just got another box. Also anonymous.

To give some substance to this post, I will quote an unrelated email from a student.

“Professor Clarissa, I got your message saying ‘I acknowledge the receipt of your essay.’ Does this mean you did or didn’t receive it?”

I swear, this stuff only happens to me. 

First, a colleague gave me a huge bag of beautiful maternity clothes.

And now, a postman dragged in an enormous box filled with very expensive new baby stuff somebody sent to me anonymously. All of the most expensive items from my baby registry are there. 

There is no return address, no card. Just a box full of gifts. 

People are very kind. In unexpected ways, too.