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March 09, 2006

I blame the tutor ........

I have a new tutor for this year and he is great, rather obsessed with James Joyce which is not necessarily a bad thing but great all the same...

What was that? Oh you are waiting for the giant BUT - well here it comes....

If I must pick a fault it is that he is a little too amicable, which is a trait that indeed has its place but that place is not when standing in front of a classload of students talking about how lenient you are with deadlines.

Yes I know. we are OU students, we are older and wiser than your average eighteen year old student and we are there because we want to be not because mummy and daddy expected it of us and we are mature and disciplined enough to juggle grown up things like family lives and jobs and still end up completing our work and without an excuse of a hungry cat to be seen for miles around.

Oh yes that’s us, or at least so he thinks.

‘I’m happy to give extensions!’ he said smiling cordially, ’All I ask is....’
Ah! I thought, here comes the BUT...
All I ask is that you have a bloody good excuse.
All I ask is that you bear in mind that any extra time spent marking means I spend less time with my beautiful wife and children. Have that on your conscience buddy.
All I ask is that you get down on your knees and beg.
All I ask is that you agree to have 20% knocked off your mark..

Nope none of these things, what he actually said was ‘all I ask is that you let me know before the deadline.’

Let him know? Jesus Christ so it’s not even ‘asking permission’ anymore.

So yesterday just as the adrenalin was kicking in reminding me that I only had a day left to finish what I was writing, there was a little voice in the back of my head saying, ‘Well it’s not a day really.’
So consequently despite my good intentions this year, I caught the last post with ten minutes to spare.

But the important point is I didn’t take advantage of his ill-advised generosity.

Bah! There’s always next month.

Posted by purple elephant at March 9, 2006 10:35 PM