Mice

I say this not as "boo-hoo poor baby nadi," I say this because I know worse is already happening to kids with long covid. Despite two rounds of democratic presidents since I was undergoing this torture, we still "No Child Left Behind," and I remember how students with even minor learning issues were taught by teachers when I was in public school. Now imagine you're a 8 year old with persistent brain fog and constant fatigue and weird gastrointestinal issues and imagine how teachers (whose jobs are still tied to student's standarized test scores over 20 years later) are treating them. How many of these kids are getting the opposite of attention? How many are getting crammed into already overpopulated and under-funded/staffed special education rooms? How many are branded as lazy and stupid and "problem" when they're literally sick and getting sicker because we can't even get schools to put an air filter in the room?

I have this passion for airborne illness caution because I can see just how many kids are living worse childhoods than I had. I can see the hundreds of thousands of kids across the country, the millions across the world, who struggle to pay attention to lessons not because they're uninterested or unintelligent but because they're in constant suffering no one will comprehend or lessen or excuse. And knowing what it's like, I don't want more kids to go through that: I was lucky to live through it, and many don't. Masking keeps kids safer. Air filtration keeps kids safer. Improved ventilation keeps kids safer. Frequent testing for respiratory diseases keeps kids safer. Paid sick leave keeps kids safer. Hybrid options for education keeps kids safer.

The amount of writers I talk to that are happy for anything genuinely positive in this current day and age of AI slop and varying levels of awful bot comments.

Are you going to actually write that long "perfect" comment or would it help to instead focus on sending a small bright spark of happiness to a writer? To start there and build up to a longer comment later if you can? What I think I'm trying to say is that commenting can be a muscle that you train, if you feel like it. Or a habit you can form, if you feel like it. You can do better, if you want to. You can start small, too.

I have another who always comments :DDDDD with an absurd number of smiles

I LOVE THEM BOTH SO MUCH AND GENUINELY AM FILLED WITH JOY EVERY TIME I SEE AN AO3 EMAIL FROM THEM

Hi, just want to pull these specific tags forward because I think they make a really great point, especially when it comes to longer, multi-chapter fics! You can only leave one (1) kudos on a whole fic, regardless of if it has multiple chapters -- and since more writers are locking their fics to only be seen by folks with AO3 accounts, that rules out any additional guest kudos.

I've seen posts about leaving "second kudos" comments or even "why can't I leave more kudos, AO3!!!" and those kind of comments are a delight to receive, speaking personally, because they tell me that readers are STILL HERE enjoying my chapter fics. It can be hard to know that anyone is reading new chapters, if I don't get new comments and if a reader left their allotted kudos when an earlier chapter was released and read.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

Currently, it's marking season for us in the UK. I have an exam board in four hours, in fact, which is where we all go over every profile of every student on our courses, see what results they've achieved, and work out their "decision" - if all is well, the decision is to let them continue the course, or the final degree grade calculated if they're in final year. If it hasn't gone well, the decision is about whether they get to rework the pieces that failed, resit exams, repeat the whole year, or be required to withdraw.

And, as has been the case for the last two years, the profiles are now littered with plagiarism investigations. Every one of those - every single one - will have come in as an assignment that the lecturer received, and started reading, and then with a sinking feeling thought "This isn't your work." Every one had to go to an academic misconduct hearing. Every one is an enormous draw on time and resources, including the emotional reserves of the lecturer.

And I know that's not the main issue! I know in the grand scheme of things, our feelings aren't the most important part of this equation! But as we're talking about rudeness, let me explain:

Firstly, the work itself. You begin reading, you see it's AI. Contractually, we have to read it anyway, and give feedback on why it's shit, and what makes it bad, and that is absolutely fucking soul destroying. Most students who use AI are doing so because they've managed to train their brains to find reading something boring abhorrent, and they want to skip that part; but a ChatGPT-generated report is bland, vague, and utterly devoid of any passion, insight or personality. In short, it's boring. You simply passed your boredom on to us.

Secondly, regardless of your personal feelings about the assignment, it at least had a purpose. It was there to stretch you, and make you think about the topic so you could learn about it, and to test that learning so we can all make sure you have actually learned what you need to. But the slop you handed in, that I now have to mark? What's the point? Literally what is the fucking point of me marking it? You didn't even write it. None of the feedback I'm obligated to give means anything to you. I'm marking ChatGPT, and it can't read.

Which means, not only is it fucking boring, it's actively pointless. Ask anyone in the world what a boring but pointless obligatory task does to your mood. Imagine that.

Thirdly, the misconduct hearing. Because listen, again, the lecturer's feelings here are, once again, not the main point. Students who cheat like this aren't doing so because life is hunky dory. They're stressed and overwhelmed and struggling, and they think they've found a magic way out, and so being pulled into a misconduct hearing - where the best they can hope for is to have to redo the whole piece for a capped mark, on top of all the rest of the work they have (functionally, a bonus assignment), and the worst is expulsion - is a mental breakdown-inducing experience. That, obviously, is the biggest issue.

But, the lecturers know all that, which means we know what we're triggering if we do report it. I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to receive a slop assignment, realise what it is, and then have to make the call to report it. I know damn well how upsetting that's going to be for you. I know how stressful and painful that's going to be. I know this might mean you're going to be thrown out of university. In some cases, I know it means you will be.

I know I could look the other way to spare you that

And oh, that gets tempting. When things are really bad for you, and I see you struggling, and this is your third strike; fuck me but it's tempting to pretend that I can't tell.

I cannot do that.

Which brings me to number four: the soul-bleachingly fucking horrible ordeal that is the misconduct hearing itself. Most people are non-confrontational; I'm no exception. I also simply do not enjoy a sobbing, panicking student sitting in front of me, telling me about how stressed and scared they are and how they're terrified they're going to fail. But that's how these things go.

Our most recent example is an international Masters student. I don't know the particulars for him; but I do know it's not uncommon in his part of the world for families to go into obscene debt, often to loan sharks, to send their kids to UK universities. Failure means more than just academia for him. Having to sit through him turning white and quietly begging us to give him another chance before he left in tears he tried to hide from us was, obviously, much worse for him than us; but it was honestly traumatic. Even now, two weeks later, I can't get it out of my head. There's nothing we can do; but, I feel guilty anyway. I could have looked the other way.

(It wouldn't have passed anyway. It was terrible. But at least he'd probably be allowed a resit - we're still waiting on the outcome of this one, but he may well be withdrawn)

To bring this back to the point of the post:

As in, do any of your memories take place during the 90s (yes, a single memory from 1999 counts).

I'm afraid they'll become engineers and sign off on bridge designs that collapse - and people will die.

I'm afraid they'll become medical professionals who don't know what they're doing - and people will die.