1. I had told all my students in advance that today would be the one day they’d have to fight for their marks if they felt I had made an error with my calculations. I knew full well that for the most part I’d be dealing with students who would be fighting for marks that they clearly didn’t deserve. I say “clearly” because as far as I’m concerned, if you’re honestly going to argue with me about your English mark in Korean than you should really reconsider you’re argument and I should really reconsider your mark… as in reconsider lowering it.
2. There were of course those students who came with physical bribes; coffee and bread… both of which clearly don’t work with me. Others, who came with English-speaking friends. A couple came and almost broke down in tears but the most interesting of the day were these two students who practically hunted me down and stalked me today. At 7am I got a text message from the one, asking me when I’d be showing up for work. Text messages continued and then around 8:30am when I eventually stepped out of my house, one student was sitting outside waiting for me. The other “stalkerish-student-of-the-day” continued to bombard my cell phone with texts. They then emailed me three times today and called the office three times for me. It wasn’t until mid-morning that this particular student showed up. She gave me a big long song and dance, demanding I give her an A+, but when I refused to give her an extra 3 percent to make her mark an A+ she got all sour faced on me and almost cried.
3. I may not be a strict teacher or a hardcore tough teacher, but one thing I definitely am is an honest teacher and so it drives me mental when students have the nerve to ask me to push their mark up. “Push your mark up?” I ask. “I gave you 16 weeks to earn that mark and you come here and think you can get it in a day… no such luck” is always my answer.
4. With all the students coming in and out of my office, I never did get to finish my marks or my professional portfolio. Nor did I get the chance to post my grades on the university website and so this meant that I’ll have to pencil in another day to come work on my holidays… dang!
5. Snickers showed up around 1pm to help me with my stuff and he couldn’t have come at a better time. I had just had an “interesting” argument with a particular person and so I was ready to quit for the day… for the year actually, so him wrapping his arms around me and telling me its’ okay was a much needed escape from the stress that had hit me. He had come dressed up in anticipation of possibly running into my students and coworkers and so it seemed like such a waste for us both to be so dressed up with no place to go after work. Word had it that the new Transformers movie hit the theaters today and so off we headed to go check that out.
6. Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen was pretty cool!!!
7. Got invite number two for dinner at Snicker’s house by his father K-Gere and so that was cool. He called to ask what I wanted to eat and then we headed over for a quick dinner before boxing.
8. Nothing particularly interesting happened at boxing besides the fact that Snickers and I probably picked the worst time of the day to go train. The club was packed and I got stuck waiting it out for pad work, which meant I did about an hour of training (skipping and shadow boxing) before I got to step in the ring with Junior Mint and when I finally did, he complained about me not giving strong punches. He really knows how to push my buttons and telling me that I’m weak definitely pushes a button with me.
9. After late night training, Snickers and flopped down on the couch and chatted. We talked about his “5-year-plan”. Snickers has this plan that he’s been planning and up until a couple of months ago, prior to me that it, it only involved taking his boxing international. Truth be known, Snickers and I talk about marriage; we talk about it a lot.
10. Both of us were exhausted from boxing and so we ended up dozing off beside each other. Snickers was way off in la-la land and apparently was dreaming of boxing because no sooner did we drift off but then I woke up to him punching me!!! He squared me right in the side of the shoulder and so I popped up like a pop tart in the toaster. Dang, that hurt!!!
QUESTION OF THE DAY…
What does time have anything to do with it?
QUOTE OF THE DAY…
To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone.
Reba McEntire
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
3 comments:
I hate that. Once in health class I had a B, and one test left. I took the test and got a C+. I figured that wouldn't be enough to drop my grade. But when I got my report card in the summer, sure enough, I had a C+. It was so close, it angered me so much that I had no way to explain my situation. One test shouldn't determine an entire grade. You might be a tough teacher, but grades determine our lives.
-Bman
Yo Bman,
I agree, one mark shouldn't determine an entire grade but remember, not always is it the teacher's decision! Take my situation for example, I am forced to make my midterm and final exam each a MASSIVE 30% of their final mark. I don't agree with putting so much weight on the exams but I am merely a messager of those in control.
As for grades determining our lives... I'd have to disagree with that. I failed a class in university and things got quite dirty with me and a professor to the point I took them to court with it but look at me now. No one is the wiser!
I understand a final exam having a lot of weight, that makes sense, but in my situation it wasn't an exam. It was a small test, really more like a quiz.
And what I mean by controlling our lives is that today, grades are a bigger part of a students life than ever before. Competition is higher, colleges are taking less and less students, and a GPA is a greater factor in determining my generations future salary than ever before.
-bman
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