Hil, I don't think you should feel bad you explained the system in advance. It's not fair to everyone else to change it now. I mean, maybe not , but it just seems unfair to me when those who fall short but complain about it somehow get a benefit from their complaining.

Can you offer a compromise? Some challenging set of word problems that are not entirely beyond the level he was aiming at for him to do to earn a bump up?

ETA: Or perhaps make it purposefully beyond him, so that there is only a slim, slender tiny chance he will actually bother? That way he shuts up, and yet you aren't being unfair to all the students who never thought to annoy you.

I'm not sure if it's unrecognized grief for her or for that world that is so alien to me now.

That's sort of how I feel about Michigan. I don't want to move back to Alpena, but there's something about the lakes and the sky there that I miss, and something about the UP that I find myself wanting to revisit, almost as if I'd find Dad there.

Why am I reading Skinny Bitch? I know this book is bad for me.

Also, my officemate today asked me if I knew where there were good places around here to go hunting. Um, that would be a no. As anyone who has commented on my food as often as he has would have to know.

Also, my officemate today asked me if I knew where there were good places around here to go hunting.

I am honestly starting to suspect brain damage.

I told him I knew a good place to watch turtles playing, but he didn't seem interested.

I know this book is bad for me.

Then walk away. It's the healthy thing to do. (eta: I don't always follow my own advice, but I think it's still good advice. Much like flossing.)

OK, a bit of googling tells me that I was only remembering it half right. The ruling is that, if a pregnant woman smells a food and gets a craving from that, then "you" must get the food for her, even if it's not kosher. It doesn't specify the husband in particular for that "you." (They believed that a pregnancy craving was a vital need, and that not eating a food you were craving could cause a miscarriage.)

When I was hanging out with some Orthodox gals I told them to avoide bacon because if they had it they could never go back.

I ate bacon as a kid, sometimes. Never really liked it that much.