Monday

 

Well..... I submitted all ~230 course grades this morning, after having them “marinate" a bit when I finished them up Sunday afternoon.  Those were grades spread out between my five courses (and three independent study courses.... which I had for 7 students).  When I say "marinate" I am letting the grades rest a bit as I contemplate/debate whether to add any sort of modest final curve to the course.  

I would have liked to have had my grades in sooner, but I had three errant grades missing for one of my A&P classes where I have lab instructors who work with me to teach some of the laboratory sections.  I teach all the kids in lecture, and depending upon the semester, some of the students in the laboratory for this course as well.  But, especially in Fall and Winter semesters, I tend to have a small cadre of laboratory instructors work with me.  And, unfortunately, they can be somewhat notorious for a) being slow to get grading finished, and b) sometimes MISSING a few grades when they finally do send grades to me.  This time, it was a mix of both.  I needed to contact THREE lab instructors about missing scores for a total of 4 students.  

It used to be that the time of "marination" of grades was something I very much looked forward to, because for many, many years.... my routine for "marinating" grades was to.... when I computed the final scores and had them all written down in the grade book, I would skedattle off the U campus and head across town to visit with my father in-law, where we would have a drink or two or so, and smoke our pipes and chat and talk away the afternoon.  Sometimes we would do some work out in his workshop (pole barn) as well.  I would always regale to him a variety of the more "interesting" of the various student stories I had acquired during the last few weeks of the semester.  Very, very pleasant memories from those days!  

Yesterday, my wife and I and two of our kids met up to go to the theater, as they were showing a "50th" Anniversary showing of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".  To me, it is a movie BEST experienced in the actual movie theater, so I thought it would be very enjoyable.  It was only the third time I saw it in the theater.

I have always loved watching movies. But, different periods of my life had different genres of movies become my favorites.  During the 70s and 80s I tended to especially appreciate "politically" focused and "romantic comedy" style movies... a few that come to mind, "Getting Straight", "The Way We Were",  "For Pete's Sake", "China Syndrome", "Yentl" and others of that ilk.  It was not until the late 80s and into the early 1990's that a particular type of comedy became a big focus for me..... and inevitably they were of the "absurdist" comedy type... but even then it was of a subgenre of "absurdism" that delighted me.  "MP The Holy Grail" was one of those types of what I call "communication absurdism" comedies.  

Monty Python was a great film for me to see.  It is wholly an "absurdist" comedy.... and one component often of the type of "absurdist" comedy that especially tickles my fancy is that there is a protagonist who, no matter how hard he tries, fails to communicate effectively to others in the film.  And, to make it even more profoundly funny for me is when the protagonist actually DOES communicate effectively, but the communication is not accurately perceived by the other characters.  

Over the years, there have been many films with this sort of communication MIScommunication style of absurdist comedy.  A few of my favorites include:

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, etc.)

"House Sitter" (Steve Martin & Goldie Hawn)

"What About Bob? (Richard Dreyfuss & Bill Murray)

"The God's Must Be Crazy" 

"Groundhog Day" (Bill Murray & Andie MacDowell)

I had better go and get to working on some of the presentations for the upcoming conference that I have six sets of researchers going to in a couple of weeks.  

But, before I go, I just realized that today is May 4th.  Most folks think of today as "Star Wars Day".... but in my mind, now that I realized today was May 4th.... the two things I think about and remember are a) it is now the sad, 56th Anniversary of the Kent State University Shootings, and b) it was on this date, 56 years ago that the happy event of my oldest niece being born also occurred.  

PipeTobacco