Marking

Imagine the people marking your exams, huddled in a cold, dark room during winter. They have to scrutinise and go through several hundred exam papers... If your handwriting is messy and hard to read, that would only make them more irritated, and give you less marks.

We used to laugh at such an image. Back in secondary school, our teachers always told us the same story... It was used too often, and seemed too exaggerated and unreal.

Anyway, who cared about the people marking our papers, when we were desperately trying to write as much as possible before they told us to put our pens down? Who could blame us for our messy handwriting, when there was always too much to write and too little time :)

Now, I think I'm starting to understand what they were talking about.

It's cold, it's dark (outside), and I've spent the last 2.5 hours going cross-eyed over a stack of lab reports. Don't get me wrong, demonstrating is very enjoyable, it's just the marking bit that I don't look forward to :) At least I'm getting better at deciphering peoples' handwriting... If they ever told me that story again, I'd probably shiver instead of laugh :)

16 lab reports marked, 22 more to go...

(Comics taken from www.phdcomics.com)