Santa Claus is coming to couch 68!!!!!

THanks guys! I'm so happy, I no longer have to worry about homelessness in single digit weather with four feet of snow already on the ground

Grades are part of the package when being considered for a graduate program, but really only a part. Graduate position openings are much more like job openings, with lots of factors coming into play.

And yes, teachers do care about their students' grades. I'm a TA and my advisor and I have spent many an hour agonizing over exam grades. We often look for every opportunity to give a student (or the entire class) the chance for extra points. For example, if we see a question that all or nearly all students get wrong, we'll toss it out. If the overall exam average is lower than our target, we curve.

You mention that you're trying to figure out what you can do to be perfect. I hope you know that being perfect is an unattainable and unrealistic goal. Even if you get "perfect" grades, if you aim for perfect, you will likely always feel that you fell short. Perhaps a more realistic and more satisfying goal would be to do the best you can do and be proud of how you do? You did great work in biochemistry. Take pride in that. You did something that not many people can do. Pat yourself on the back!

I think that's very unlikely. I have never been involved in Masters applications (that level didn't exist when I was an undergrad and the applications are handled by the director of studies so I don't see them) but for PhD applications, individual exam results on the undergraduate level are never considered, they are not even seen by the committee that decides who will be accepted. Results on exams at Masters level might perhaps be taken into account if there are many applicants, but mostly it's the Masters thesis.

That's where I work, mind you, and I don't pretend to know how the applications process works in all faculties, but I'm sure this exam result won't work against you at all when you apply for the Masters level, and definitely not in your PhD application.

Yes, I always felt bad for the student in those cases. Especially back in the days before exams were anonymous, and I could see who the student was, it could make me feel really bad, as well as guilty for being such a bad teacher.

Once I had a student threaten to report me for marking his exam wrong, when I had missed a place where he could have got an extra point, which would have given him a VG. That made me sleepless, I can tell you. Fortunately, the first step in the process was to give the exam to another teacher who checked my marking, and who not only agreed with me but thought that I'd been too lenient in another place, where I had given a point for an answer that was only half-correct. (And yes, that was a law student, who took an English course in addition to his law studies.)

I think it's a difficult thing to stop. I do that sort of thing, too. My exT would ask me "If your [husband/niece/sister/friend] did that, would you judge them as harshly?" and I can see how that is a reasonable question, yet it failed to make me think differently. I think it's possible to change one's thinking, but it is a really hard thing to do.

Seriously this was not meant as a means to illicit sympathy from people. I apologize ... perhaps I didn't do a good job writing this...

Thanks for telling me that. It's nice that people care. Keep up the good work by the way. I don't know if people ever tell you this but you TAs and teachers do a great job (well, most of you anyway).

My psychologist has told me something similar but I find it so hard to accept. When I read what you wrote about perfection being unattainable I seriously shut my eyes and said "no no no no no" out loud. I sort of understand where you're coming from but at the same time it's like my mind can't understand it. I don't know why that is.

Oh yeah, they weren't anonymous before. I really like it that you can be anonymous when taking an exam nowadays. I would've felt even worse if I knew the teacher would know whose exam they're grading.

Why did you feel "guilty for being such a bad teacher"?

Yeah, I don't know how to change it. Sometimes I wonder if I even want to change my thinking when it comes to perfectionism. I mean, I'd love for the anxiety to go away and I'd love to not have to spend hours and hours reading the same things and checking for mistakes over and over again, but if I'm not striving towards perfection it feels like I'm not trying to do my best. Do you know what I mean? It's a bit difficult to explain.

N--I just wanted to show some support cause I am the same way, I have to have A's if not I have such anxiety, I am completely obsessive aboutm y grades. My C says I put my self-worth on my grades, and when i don't get A's I think I'm not good enough, or stupid, or a failure or inadequate and unworthy. But she also says that isn't true and that I have much value as a person, As do you.

Yes, I am very happy about the change to anonymous exams, too. Thing is, as a teacher, you have to be to some degree personal and try to reach each student as an individual, and that can make it harder to grade exams objectively, I think. I fully believe that most teachers were fair, before, and the reason the system was changed is not that there was a lot of injustice and unfairness, but it just feels better for the students and the teachers, when there can be no doubt that the content and not the person is being graded. If you see what I mean.

When a student I had been teaching, especially if it was a student I'd had in my own seminar group of maybe 8 students, did not do well in the exam, part of the blame has to fall on me. Most of the blame, the way I saw it. It was really hard. I was lucky in that most of the students I taught were very bright.

I do know what you mean. I think it's a question of being able to make a difference between what we strive for - perfection - and what we can accept as a substitute. If we can't accept anything other than perfection we won't get anything done, but it is still worth striving for. I think.

SO much easier to give this advice to others, than for me to live by it.

Just saw "Walking with Dinosaurs" in 3-D

I'm like that too. You know (this next part might be really cheesy and/or sad and/or crazy), thinking, studying and using my brain are pretty much the only things I've ever been good at. I've never been good at social situations, I've been bullied, I've dealt with mental illness since childhood etc and learning things, memorizing things, analyzing things, reading and marveling at the wonders of life and science have always been my way of making sense of the world and see some sort of meaning with being here. I've often felt like it's all I have, so when that fails (or doesn't go as well as I want it to) I feel like I'm a complete failure. I then feel like I'm very unintelligent and worthless. My sense of self-worth is completely tied to achievement nowadays and I often feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes when he says "I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for?"

I really don't know if this makes any sense at all to whoever reads this but I guess it's one of the reasons I find it so important for me to be intelligent and perfect.

Posting this makes me nervous.

I am the SAME exact way N! Books, intelligent pursuits, school etc like you said was always MY thing, I was bullied too (And was the bully), and often kept to myself, I've had OCD my whole life, depression came when I turned 14. My escape was intelligence. And it was ALSO the one thing I was good at! Even better at than others. Math especially, I ALWAYS got the highest grades, and so one time a girl beat me by .1 on a test and I cried for hours.

I don't agonize over grading, although I did my first year as a professor. All of my exams are essay type and there is some arbitrariness built into the grading of such. I do have to make splits between an A grade and a B grade and so forth - so I do so and go on with my life. I do my best to make rational and consistent decisions while grading. I like having anonymous exams from students as it protects me.

I see what you mean. Are you still teaching a lot?

Are you better at it nowadays? Not being so hard on yourself I mean. If so, how'd you get there?

This. First, it's a really good analysis, and second, I recognise myself in this. This may sound a bit cheesy, but there's a song I always listen to on my mp3 player on the bus when I'm on my way to T: it's Enya (yes, yes, I know, I like (some) new agey music) singing a song called One Toy Soldier. It contains the lines:
Who will mend my broken drum / Will it be as good as new? / I must play when morning comes / If I don't, what shall I do?

I must be brainy. I must. When I was seven years old, my dad would take me to the lectures given by new professors at the university, and all my aspiration was to one day be comparable to one of them. (I will never be a professor*, I know that, and I actually don't feel too bad about that. Professors' chairs come with too much paperwork, these days.) I do want to be a real academic, though.

Sorry, neutrino, I did not mean to take over this and make it about myself. I think that your love of science, and of knowledge, and of finding out, will lead you to marvellous places. It's just a matter - again - of being able to be content with less than perfection. Historically, scholars have been perfectionists. They could be locked away for 20 years working on a single book. These days, we have to publish and be seen, and there is never time to get that perfect publication prepared. It's a little sad, but it is the way it is, and we just have to curb and curtail our perfectionism a bit.

*Cultural aside: in Swedish academia, "professor" has a different meaning than it has in English. The professor is the academic chair of a department, or of one academic field in a department. He or she is the one responsible for the research activities at the department.

RT did you watch the 3d dinosaur show at home?

Well the kids I had to test this period are done, but the 7th graders in the classroom are not done (I had the 8th graders), so we are sitting in the guidance office bored to death waiting. Even though they are not supposed to have them out during school, I told them kids they could play games on their phones until they go home. What else are they supposed to do?

I don't teach much, no. And I teach no courses where there is an exam - the course I give has no academic credits, the participants only get a certificate if they complete the course. I miss it, a bit, but there is also a lot I don't miss. Such as grading exams.

I'm a little less hard on myself, I think. At least in some areas. I do have a PhD, and I cannot honestly claim that I got it undeservedly. It's a long, hard slog to get there, and I did it. I know I can get a conference paper accepted, though I am less than confident in my own ability to actually do research on the level that a PhD ought to be able to. But I do have a couple of friends who are also linguists, and who I know will tell me the truth, who just roll their eyes and flat out refuse to accept that I'm not smart enough.

You are fighting a psychological issue that takes a lot of energy and takes up a lot of mental space. Allow yourself to be less than perfect, because frankly, you are fighting an uphill battle and passing this exam was a victory.

No in the movie theatre

I bet that was cool, I didn't know if you had a 3d tv and blue ray or something. I've only seen one 3d movie and it was pretty cool but wearing the glasses over my glasses sucked!

Hello.. We are under an ice storm warning, all of the schools in the area close early b/c of the ice, including mine.. Which left the last day of school before Christmas break CRAZY! and also, only gave me an hour with my pre-k kids and their Christmas party. But is over, I am off of school until January 6th and I plan on living in my sweat pants and slippers that whole time, with a mug of hot chocolate or coffee at all times I suppose I should wrap some presents at some point as well.

No it actually just came out in the movie theaters today.

BTW I go see a lot of movies in the movie theaters- I can count at least 24 films this year with at least 1 more before the year is over.

I finished wrapping yesterday and may I just add that I suck at wrapping.... Its like a child did it and no amount of practice in the world will ever make that better.... I love gift bags! Enjoy your sweatpants and hot beverage of choice, that is how I will spend the next week as well!

I don't think I have seen a movie in a theatre in the last 5 years. I fast forward through most of them at home.

WOW.... I love the movies and the popcorn, well mostly the popcorn...

Hunger Games last week and The new Hobbit this week! I also need to plan on anchorman 2 from what I've read here.

Lola- I suck at it too! I try to use gift bags as much as possible, but try to wrap presents for my kids, because that is half the fun of opening presents.

10 minutes till I am on break.