Friday 17^th April, 2020 1945

Not a rant this time. Well, not much of one!

I have just finished marking a classes essays. It's all I have done all day. I have another class in my inbox and another will probably ping at me in the morning. I can do one a day over the weekend if I choose.

But today's class efforts were submitted by sophomores (second year students) and by and large they were dreadful. The propensity for writing in Chinglish I can fully understand although it would require completely rewriting their essays to correct them. But the spelling mistakes? I have a Chinese laptop and it has a spellchecker! So theirs do also! It seems they want to do as little as they possibly can and send it off complete with idiotic mistakes.

Two submissions today were blatantly copied and pasted. Photographs from inside high schools that have opened up to allow students to prepare for the Gaoka, or college entrance exam – a vital milestone in Chinese academic life.

Well who took the pictures, seeing as parents, friends and relatives are not allowed in, only students? Oh, reporters maybe. Chinese reporters too and even then there were errors! The biggest mistake made by two students? They left the caveat “WARNING! DISTRESSING CONTENT!” at the head of their supposed essays! There was no distressing content unless pictures of kids keeping a yard apart queueing for food in the cafeteria or having their temperature taken turns your stomach.

I have now told them that the longer this goes on the greater the impact of their homework will be on their final grade for end of term. Some seem to think they are brilliant for spending two minutes finding something, any old thing, to send to me and then going back to League of Legends or whatever garbage occupies them online. I could have said nothing and let them continue as is but they have now been given fair warning.

If this goes on as I think, it will take me a fortnight to collate all the marks but the mark they will get will be their average and there will be no quarter shown. Well, the pass mark is 60% so maybe 58-59 might get a nudge but the rest? I am buggered if I will set them a formal exam from home now if they cannot take it as seriously as I am.

I see now Beijing has increased the official death toll from the virus. It was not a cover up. Of course not. Even their most ardent of supporters must have had suspicions when it levelled out at thirty-three hundred while the rest of the world dropped like flies sprayed with Rentokil! Another six-figure upgrade coming soon?

With all the “scientific” evidence we have been bombarded with (definitely animal-borne etc) I really hope that world suspicions about a lab escape are wrong. Or do I?