A pointless entry - apparently I want to be Anna :-/

(17:45:03) onetalkswhen1can: MESSAGES.
(17:45:03) Sniffnoy <AUTO-REPLY> : I'll imitate Anna: Leave me messages!

Er, I suppose that might be a bit unclear. I do *not* mean that if you leave me messages I'll imitate Anna. :P
(17:45:05) onetalkswhen1can: :-D
(17:45:37) onetalkswhen1can: I've set a trend! I've set a trend!
(17:45:43) onetalkswhen1can: *skips around in a circle*
(17:46:01) onetalkswhen1can: is it called a trend when 1 person is following? hmm...
(17:46:14) onetalkswhen1can: but... I am emulated! someone wants to be me.
(17:46:27) onetalkswhen1can: *smiles a I'm-such-a-star smile*
(18:25:46) Sniffnoy: I want to *be* Anna? :-/
(18:25:54) onetalkswhen1can: I know you do
(18:26:00) onetalkswhen1can: awww
(18:27:16) Sniffnoy: does anyone who wants messages want to be Anna?
(18:30:11) onetalkswhen1can: no. just you. :-P
(18:30:22) onetalkswhen1can: or perhaps you're the only one who openly admitted this
(18:30:36) onetalkswhen1can: maybe everyone wants to *be* Anna
(18:30:37) Sniffnoy: because everybody wants to be Anna? :P
(18:30:52) onetalkswhen1can: haha... you even *speak* like me now!
(18:31:09) onetalkswhen1can: ahhh!

[I go on to complain that I don't speak like her... nothing worth reposting.]

Dr. Mayers's Merry Moving (Missed?) Mark

At the very beginning of the year, Dr. Mayers gave us an assignment. The assignment was simple: to compare and contrast the two dystopian novels we read for summer reading (1000 words). One portion of the assignment sheet read as follows:

Benchmark: by the time I see you next Monday or Tuesday, I would like everyone to have a typed outline of your paper (two copies - one for me, and one for you). This outline should contain a draft of your opening paragraph, hierarchically organized main points, examples, and page references. A rough draft will be due one week later.

No due date is mentioned, but I believe it was written somewhere else that it was due September 9th.

"September 9th?!" you say. "How could it be due that early?!" Well, most likely you don't, as it's now November, so a date in September is probably now meaningless to you - but even so, that was the reaction from the students. The answer was, it wasn't. None of those due dates were right; in an earlier year they were true, perhaps, but this year, the deadline was being extended.

"But till when?", you ask. Well, that's just the thing. Nobody seems to know.

Nobody really worried about the essay until the past two weeks. Before then, there were various rumors circulating around - "I hear there's an outline of the essay due this Friday!" - "I'm told the essay is due next Tuesday" - but nobody really believed these dates. So when was it actually due? We didn't know.

Well, two weeks ago, he tells our class, we should have an outline done by Friday. Does anybody actually do an outline? Probably. Does anybody that I spoke to? No. Did he collect the outlines (as it is implied that he would, if we are supposed to make one copy for him)? No.

Hm.

Last week I start hearing tales that Dr. Mayers told other sections (though not ours, it should be noted) that a first draft is due at the end of the week.

Is it?

Well, if so, again, he didn't check it.

What about the due date for the essay itself? He hasn't told us.

Well, one day I think to log in to turnitin.com[0], for some obscure reason, and lo! The due date for the essay is listed, and when is it? Tomorrow!

Now, you'd think I'd have started on it by now, then, but I haven't. For one thing I don't trust turnitin.com's due date, and intend to continue to not work on the essay until I know just when the due date is. Well, OK, that's not true - I was going to do it today, but I couldn't find my copy of Brave New World, so this kind of prevented that. Regardless, if the due date does turn out to be tomorrow, I - and everyone else in my class - can always claim ignorance. Because really, this is just plain ridiculous. For now, I will assume that my only Lit assignment due tomorrow is to read Maynard Mack's "A Note on Translation".

-Sniffnoy

[0]A bizarre story in itself. Well, not really a story so much as a - thing. See, apparently, whenever we have an essay - in any class, really - as well as turning it in to the teacher, we are also to submit it to - I am not making this name up - turnitin.com, a website apparently used by many schools. Turnitin.com includes things for automatic things for checking papers against each other (and the web) to see if they are plagiarized, which is kind of neat, but the question remains, why is this being done through a website? And if we have to submit an electronic copy anyway, why bother turning in a dead-tree version as well?

--
"Why, it's the most unheard-of thing that I've ever heard of!"
-Joseph McCarthy