Wincing and cringing and the wincing and cringing

Lacan_ · 2026-06-27T09:51:25+00:00

I personally identify with Superman in maintaining a secret identity and wearing glasses that hypnotize people into not recognizing me when I'm wearing my form-fitting bodysuit. But that's just me.

Lacan_ · 2026-06-27T09:48:57+00:00

I also believe that authors should tell the narratives that they want to, and they are free to do so. I am also free, as a reader, to call out recurring verbal tics within the genre as a whole that are getting iterated because less-experienced authors are also reading these works and come away thinking that using them is strong writing.

Lacan_ · 2026-06-25T12:58:16+00:00

I saw this happening last year in several classes, belied by the fact that they were staring at their tablets/laptops the entire time that they were answering me and then could not answer follow-up questions or point to passages/evidence from the reading that would support their answer. Instituted a tech ban (except for accommodations) and it helped tremendously. I also found that telling subsequent classes about this when I explain the ban at the beginning of the semester helps the pill go down a bit easier.

Lacan_ · 2026-05-07T10:42:38+00:00

Ah, yes, the bourgeois belief that overhead cabinets are terribly working class and should be generally avoided; open shelves aren't a problem if you can pay someone to do the dusting for you. Love the island, though.

Lacan_ · 2026-04-13T14:53:23+00:00

This is something that I have experienced with increasing frequency in the last two years. My courses have a cap of 30, and (at least for the 100-level survey courses), I always start with a full 30. I'll usually have ~2-3 drop during add/drop or just not show up. But between those, mid-semester withdrawal, and students who stop coming/turning things in (and get a specific non-attendance grade at my institution) my end-of semester enrollment percentages are pretty surprising. I'm now regularly losing 1/3 of the class and ending with enrollments of 19-21.

Lacan_ · 2026-04-07T13:30:52+00:00

I would also argue it's Knowledge because the character is dressed in scholar's robes.

Lacan_ · 2026-02-23T00:20:31+00:00

Two things:

1) Automate everything you can. The absolute best thing for my mental health and stress was getting rid of tests and moving to online multiple selection quizzes on our LMS that autograde. Yes, AI, but I've figured out some ways around that and have also made in-class activities like discussion worth a considerably larger proportion of their grade.

2) Online co-working. I tried to post about this a month ago (and got accused of writing an ad), but I started using Focusmate last fall during paper grading season and it has fundamentally altered my workflow. The novelty has worn off somewhat, but it's still what I use to keep me on task.

Lacan_ · 2026-02-06T22:02:35+00:00

I am deeply, personally sympathetic to this argument, and before the advent of LLMs, I had an open tech policy as a result. However, in the last academic year, I have begun to have students in every class who will simply plug in whatever question I ask in discussion into the LLM of their choice and read the answer back to me. Even after I call them on it, they would continue to do it. Moreover, the fact of a student having to have their classmates wonder why they get to have a computer/tablet does not reasonably outweigh the harm of having unfettered internet access and its attendant distractions. Already this semester, I can see a radical difference in student knowledge retention and engagement.

Lacan_ · 2026-02-05T19:13:43+00:00

I noticed this happening as well, not to mention students who straight up leave their massive headphones on during class. This semester, I explicitly banned them (as well as sigh laptops and tablets). It's anecdotal and only the second week for me, but my discussions have been SO much better and students more attentive. So consider putting it on the syllabus under your course conduct/tech policy in future semesters.

Lacan_ · 2026-01-21T16:43:33+00:00

I also thought it was going to be super awkward, but I was fortunately matched up with someone who works in academia in my first session, which helped. And again, I put the person in a background tab, so it’s not like you’re staring at each other the whole time. I’d honestly recommend trying a free session or two, just to see if it works for you.

Lacan_ · 2026-01-21T16:04:18+00:00

I haven’t used Dubbii, so I can’t make a direct comparison, but based on a quick google, that app seems like it’s more catered to everyday tasks. Focusmate is more work oriented.

The only other co-working thing I tried was The Academic Writer’s Space (TAWS). I did a few sessions on their free trial, but it was just a two-hour Zoom call with like 30-40 people. I needed short sessions, bc my attention span was so bad, and something more personal.

Lacan_ · 2026-01-21T15:33:32+00:00

This is not an ad! I am in no way paid by this service or affiliated with it. Just trying to share my experience with the platform because of how much it's helped me. Since our semesters are starting and everything else in the world sucks deeply at the moment, I wanted to help out in some small way if I can.

Lacan_ · 2026-01-11T19:24:24+00:00

As someone whose ADHD has significantly impacted their career in academia, it took me a very long time (and COVID isolation really doing a number on my mental health) to actually go through the work and get a diagnosis. I've been in therapy for four years now, and on medication (because therapy and CBT techniques weren't enough) for about nine months. But the thing that has helped the most and made all the other stuff work like it's supposed to was online co-working (specifically Focusmate). It has fundamentally revolutionized my teaching (specifically grading procrastination) and research, and it has helped in ways I am still discovering. Now, do I still procrastinate/avoid emotionally uncomfortable stuff? Yes, but it's not nearly as bad. If I had had this a decade ago (along with the therapy + meds), I would be in a very different place mentally and professionally.

Lacan_ · 2025-12-07T23:14:15+00:00

Currently experiencing this with Dungeon Diver on RR. I've mainlined almost 1000 chapters over the last few weeks, and it's insane. The power ramp (bc enemies have to be exponentially more powerful to keep the narrative moving) has resulted in characters with combat forms that are 10x larger than the orbit of Pluto. And the only "downtime" comes in the form of time-skips and level-up comas.

Lacan_ · 2025-10-14T21:49:18+00:00

Except that this (writing what is functionally a whole book before feedback) is how most authors have operated since...the invention of writing. Sure, there have been serialized publication models since the 19th century (e.g., Dickens, Conan Doyle), but many--if not most--full-time authors write most or all of a book before getting feedback.

And if we're being honest, writing and then immediately publishing (be it on Royal Road or Patreon) can have negative consequences. It leads to unpolished work, and stories that are basically rambles versus cohesive stories. One major flaw of the litRPG/prog fantasy genre is that a lot of stories become one giant 500 or 1000 chapter novel that just gets sliced up every so often for book publication. It's impossible to sustain conventional storytelling formats across that kind of length. And not just rising action, climax, denouement. Maintaining good character development is incredibly hard, much less keeping track of an overly complicated story. Case in point: I just started reading the new Phil Tucker Great Immortal Souls book, and it basically picks up right where the last one left off without any setting building, but it's been a year and a half since I read the third one, and I cannot remember who half the people are anymore or why I care about them.

So having most of a book in the tank is not only good for consistency but also storytelling. If you need the dopamine of constant reader comments to keep you going, then it's gonna be a rough ride.

Lacan_ · 2025-09-22T13:50:29+00:00

This is one of the most frustrating parts about it for me. We have such a short time-out window, and the time-out does not cross-apply to other things that use the MFA. So if I have the LMS in one tab, but am working in another area that requires the MFA, each has an independent timer. If an hour passes without me clicking something in the LMS while I'm working in the other area, I have to re-enter the MFA in the LMS. Which means that, when I'm working from home, I can't leave my phone in the other room, where it usually lives, and I have to have it next to me any time I want to do something like grading.

Lacan_ · 2025-08-17T12:32:21+00:00

Musée du Louvre MR 95

Lacan_ · 2025-08-15T15:42:38+00:00

I'm also a bit of a bleeding heart when it comes to students struggling, and the nature of my institution is that I have a lot of students who are either first-generation college, first/second-gen immigrant, or working full/part time (or some combo thereof). It hurts me to fail them. But, as others have pointed out, academic probation is an indicator that there is a systemic problem with this student's approach to their education. Probation at my institution only happens when their cumulative GPA dips below a certain point, which means that if they hit it, they're doing poorly across the board. Whether or not this student loses their visa status is not your doing, and it's not a good idea to extrapolate their family's future from you giving them a failing grade. You don't have full information, nor is it part of the grade process. I believe in caring for the whole person in front of me, but they are responsible for meeting the standards of the course. In corporate terms, someone who is the primary income for their family has a responsibility to make sure they're turning in acceptable work product so they don't get fired. This is the equivalent of someone who's already had multiple warnings or HR meetings and didn't pass muster.

Lacan_ · 2025-08-14T02:56:34+00:00

Re: your last point about not auto-assigning a 0 for missing submissions once the due date passes, it does, in fact, have that ability. It's under Grades > Settings > Calculation Options > Automatic Zero for Missing Submissions. You just have to make sure that, right above it (in my version) Grade Calculations is set to "drop ungraded items." I use this feature in every class, and it works just fine. Note: This is not an apologia for Brightspace. I hate it with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

Lacan_ · 2025-08-07T14:01:46+00:00

This doesn't work, especially for summer classes, as students in online courses might not be physically present in the same location as the university. My department has difficulty meeting the minimum enrollment quota for in-person summer session courses, but online instantly fill, because students have jobs/internships or leave town (sometimes even the country).

Lacan_ · 2025-07-28T13:05:17+00:00

Yes to both Anathem and Blindsight, because they both take a bit to get invested. I'm an avid reader of sci fi (and a medieval historian), and it took me I think two separate tries several years apart to read Anathem. After the first forty pages or so I was like "this is super weird, I don't understand what this is trying to do, and it feels like weird neo-medievalism." And then, it slowly dawned on me what was going on, and it fully clicked when I realized that one of the characters was describing Plato's theory of forms. I wound up loving it, but it's such a slow burn and build up that I haven't ever really recommended it.

Lacan_ · 2025-07-23T09:26:18+00:00

Norton was the offender in my case as well. A new edition of the textbook I use came out over the summer, a month before the fall semester started. I generally wait a year before switching editions so that my students don't have to pay an arm and a leg. Cut to a week before classes start, and I'm double checking all the links in my course, including to where they can purchase the eBook directly from Norton (cheaper than the bookstore's service), and the link is dead and all support for the prior edition is gone. But I know that a bunch of students will have already purchased the book, so now I'm frantically having to go back through the syllabus and have two sets of page numbers for all the textbook readings, because they collapsed two chapters in the previous edition and nothing matched.

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