It’s midterm time, and that means I’m completely exhausted. I work a lot harder during the administration of tests than I do during regular classes. Since I don’t believe in the punitive form of testing, I have to make sure that every test serves the goal for which the students gather in my classroom. Assigning grades cannot be that goal, of course. Sure enough, everybody’s teaching philosophy is different but people who use tests to catch students out in the greatest number of mistakes possible puzzle me.

So during tests (midterms, quizzes, final exams, etc.) I work with each student individually, pointing out mistakes and problematic areas, suggesting vocabulary or stylistic improvements. If a student forgets a term, I help her to remember it. If a student doesn’t know the Spanish translation for a word, I give it to him. Contrary to the training that the language teachers always get (“Just tell the students that you are not a dictionary!”), I always say, “I’m your dictionary, so feel free to ask me for translations.” My slogan that everybody knows me for is “Don’t suffer in silence.” The best test, in my opinion, is a dialogue between the student and the teacher.

Of course, all this means that I’m running around the classroom like a headless chicken during every exam, making sure that I approach every student at least half a dozen times during each test.

I also wanted to share a really nice moment that happened to me yesterday. My TA who is helping me run my Advanced Grammar course is a native speaker of Spanish (which I am obviously not). During class, she got confused on a grammar point and asked me to explain. And I did. This was a quiet exchange but the students noticed. And I felt very good about myself.

Iana Jdanova, 26, is the first member of the feminist group to be fined in France for staging one of their signature topless protests.

On 5 June the self-styled “sextremist” went to the Heads of State room of Paris’s Musée Grevin waxworks, took off her top and stabbed the Russian president’s waxwork with a red-pointed stick while shouting “Putin dictator!”

The court fined her 1,500 euros for sexual exhibition – the first time the French legal system has judged Femen’s bare-breasted demonstrations to be sexual in nature – and ordered her to pay the Musée Grevin 3,004 euros for material damage to the waxwork, 1,000 euros for causing offence and 500 euros in legal costs.

So when members of Femen walk around, dance and protest topless, that isn’t sexual in nature. Yet when they stab Putin, that becomes sexual. This tells us a lot about the erotic fantasies of the French.

A disturbing story:

Prominent feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian has officially canceled a speaking engagement at Utah State University after a threat was emailed to the school promising a mass shooting targeting her and anyone who attended the event.

The email said there would be “the deadliest school shooting in American history” if Sarkeesian’s speech was not canceled by the university, and goes on to detail exactly how the attack would be carried out.

“If you do not cancel her talk, a Montreal Massacre style attack will be carried out against the attendees, as well as students and staff at the nearby Women’s Center. I have at my disposal a semi-automatic rifle, multiple pistols, and a collection of pipe bombs.”

Originally, despite the threat, Sarkeesian was still planning to go ahead with the speech, but after learning from campus law enforcement that Utah’s concealed carry laws meant it would be possible that guns would indeed be at the event, she changed her mind.

Utah is a weird place. And Utah’s universities are even weirder. We once had a job candidate from Utah who gave the most hilarious talk on Lorca anybody can even imagine. The whole point of the talk was to communicate to the audience that Lorca was gay (something that everybody knows and doesn’t find extremely fascinating as a topic of discussion) without actually saying it. 

And gaming, of course, is a pursuit for people with serious psychological impairments and trauma. So if you implement the formula “gamers + Utah”, something very scary will result. Sarkeesian is a very brave person.

As promised, here are this blog’s WordAds earnings:

Thank you, dear readers, for contributing to this bounty with your visits. I promise to spend money in a way that will generate more posts. Everything I do makes me want to post, so this won’t be hard.

After an hour – long conversation with the HR department of a state university,  I have reached a single conclusion: immediate and total privatization of everything is urgently needed. What I have seen today can only be described as evil. HR departments are horrible and useless in private companies,  as well,  but they don’t even remotely rise to this level of inhuman insanity.

After I recover from the trauma, I will offer some details of the experience.

“I have to do it, I have to take care of everyone. I can’t say no when people need me to take care of them. But I never have time to take care of me,” a young woman announces proudly later in the show.

There is no law that can legislate this away.

Just to illustrate the real cause of the problem that Affirmative Consent laws are trying to address.

A mother on Dr. Phil admits that she abuses and beats her 13 – year – old daughter.

“What does she needs to do for you to stop treating her this way?” Dr. Phil asks.

“She should do what I tell her and stop saying ‘no’ to me,” the mother announces brightly.

Ten years from now,  this girl will be posting online an essay about how she wanted to say no but couldn’t get herself heard.