departmental bickering

Can I bitch for a moment?

Anyhow, I left the meeting today at school at 3 because I COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. All the henpecking, the catfighting over how to grade exam points and ser/estar, preceeded by henpecking and catfighting over oral sections and cultura. Geez Louise...so then one of our very old-timers had to get in his three cents worth about dictation (to which the one the department actually just hired as a full-time WHOLEHEARTEDLY agreed, mind you--ugh) and I had to open my big mouth to suggest even more work for the poor, overworked test writers about my idea for the guion of criteria if they feel SOOOOOOOOOOO strongly that we have to battle over this for hours asi. And if anyone has issue with these criterion, they should be sent out with the exam drafts and let everyone review the point breakdown and why it’s so, and then contest it before the exam is given, if they feel that strongly about it (as if anyone even looks at the drafts, anyway, right?) and somebody thought I was talking about an answer key, and I said, of course not, just a section-by-section breakdown of, for example, if it’s conjugated in 3rd person singular but the wrong verb, they still get 1 point, the verb and conjugation are both wrong, minus two, missed accent is minus 1/2, etc. In a large department, if you need to standardize grading so much, that is the only logical answer. However, logic does not always appeal to the masses. Giving wanna-be grading workshops in which all that is done is open-ended fighting and a bunch of latinos trying to talk above the other is just plain pointless and it gave me a headache.

Then I got up and left, because I had MUCH better things to do with my time today than sit and listen to that catfighting. Like weeding my yard. Nothing like playing in the mud to rid oneself of excess angst.

Ah. Feel better now. I think I need more protein in my diet.