无奈

妍妍近来喜欢，不，应该是“坚持”睡在爸爸和妈妈之间，以便她可以“左拥右抱”。

一天晚上，爸爸趁她睡着后，把她抱起来，想把她放到自己的床去睡。她睁开眼睛，迷茫地望着爸爸，好像在问“你要带我去哪里？”

在离开她的床还有两三步的时候，妍妍似乎意识到爸爸的企图，张口哭了起来。

结果，爸爸只好很无奈地投降了。

三代同堂

上个月去参加一个专业认证课程，在一群学员中认出一张似熟悉又有点陌生的脸。忍不住上前问他：“你是Dr. K吗？”对方点头说是。果然是当年念本科时的讲师，算一算，已经10年没见过他了。他说，他常在不同的场合遇见当年的学生，那种感觉很好，只是往往都是学生先认出老师。

第二天早上的茶点时间，一位学员走过来问我：“你是马大的讲师吗？”
“是。”
“你记得你教过我吗？”
“哪一门课呀？”
“Software Architecture。”
“哦！02年的，不太有印象了。当年我没有‘肥佬’你吧？”
“没有，我还考得挺好的。”
“谢天谢地！”

“三代同堂”的故事就这样不经意的发生在这城市的某个角落。

Ridiculous Comments

In each semester, students will do a course and teaching evaluation which allows them to evaluate every course they are taking in that particular semester. The students will have a chance to give feedback on how satisfied they are with the course, the lecturer who conducts the course, teaching and learning facility for the course, and their overall satisfaction. Basically, the students will fill in an online questionnaire for the evaluation. As for most questionnaire surveys, the students can give additional comments.

Very few students provide additional comments. Nevertheless, it is still a good chance for them to express their opinions and for me to know their views better. Normally, those who give comments just put down something very general like "make it easy to us", "OK", "need more examples" , etc. Even though quite "abstract", these comments do give me some hints on how to improve the course content and my teaching style as well as facility provided.

This semester, I was annoyed by two of the comments:

"Lecturer does not give feedback on students performance individually. And also reluctant to discuss students mark saying its confidential."

I have about 180 students in the class and still the student expected me to give feedback on individual performance? The marks are confidential - that is a fact, not an excuse that I made. Anyway, I attribute this problem to the student's ignorance .

The next comment is ridiculous:

"Hi you should do thing like labs and activities not only slides from the internet english should be the media(u)m of com. shame on um"

There was one lab session and a tutorial session every week. I didn't use slides in the class, let alone slides from the internet. English has been used as the medium of instruction since some years ago. What was the student trying to say? This is definitely not ignorance, it is stupidity.

求之三

Java is a case-sensitive programming language, which means it differentiates lower case letters from upper case letters. While marking an exam answer script for a Java-based course some days ago, I came across this statement:

My small letter sometimes look like capital letter. This will not happen if I use computer.

I think my students are getting more creative in avoiding losing marks in their exam nowadays. Apart from writing something on their answer scripts, one student even sent me an e-card with this message:


Dear Lecturer,
I am a student from Faculty of Science Computer & Information Technology.
I would like to thank you for teaching me this semester.
I am so excited because this is my last semester for all subjects!
I am going for interview for software engineer job at the telecom(m)unicat(i)on firm!
Thank you so much for every lesson U hav(e) taught me!
Than(k)s for being the most sporting, dedicated and fun lecturer!
Hope that I will always remember and apply all the lessons from U!
Hope I can score pointer 3.5 above for the last time and impressed the interviewers!
Lastly, All The Best For Us!

A few days later, the student sent me another e-card with similar message. If I could deduct the student's marks for such "harassment", I think I would. However, I couldn't :(

Then I came across another message:

Hopefully I can make it this time.

(signature)

Obviously, this is a repeating student. Luckily, the student did quite well this time.

Nevertheless, as usual, there are some funny messages appear on the answer booklets. For example:

P/S: I am really sorry, I know what to do for each question, but I don't remember the coding.

蛇鼠一窝

我星期二傍晚有教课，偶尔会听到课室天花板上有物体移动的声音，不过一直以来都相安无事。

昨天，那声音又响起，然后就有一团灰褐色的东西从天花板上掉了下来，落在课室前的桌子。一只好大的老鼠出现在那儿，用戒惧的眼神望着我，伺机而动。班上一下子骚动起来，一个学生站起来试图把老鼠赶走；另外两个坐在靠近老鼠落下位置的学生，早已吓得尖声大叫；其他坐在后面的学生也立刻起身，以防老鼠“袭击”他们。然后，其中一个学生发一声喊，冲出课室。老鼠也“咻”地跳下桌子，钻到角落的一堆椅子底下。一场“骚乱”才逐渐平息。

老鼠怎会掉下来呢？原来是冷气机的排气管漏水，为免水积聚在天花板上而把天花板压塌，漏水处的那一片天花板就被移开了。结果天花板没塌下来，倒是老鼠从天花板的那一个洞掉了下来。这阴差阳错的因果关系还真有趣。

好了，题目上的“蛇鼠一窝”又是怎么一回事？

上个星期，我的同事和保安人员就在学院的范围内，抓到一条大蟒蛇。所以你看，这不是蛇鼠一窝之地吗？

如释重负

2009年3月20日，己丑年二月廿三，傍晚7点09分，电话那头宣布了期待已久的答案。回首，走过这段长长征途的脚步虽重，却怎么也不比心里的压力来得重。今天刚好是春分，但愿也是自己一个新季节的开始。