Papers marked. Cheque.
12:25 p.m.
This past week I have spent hours and hours marking papers. There were a couple of A++ ones, some A+, a few more A, and the rest were fair to middling. I have come to the conclusion that most young people have no idea how to express themselves in writing in their mother tongue. There was an overall lack of consistency in the use of apostrophes, commas, and even periods. Punctuation in general sucked. Also, something I would not expect from native English speakers, very few people consistently got prepositions correct. It was as though they were all equipping this item and they all needed the judicious application of a WANG. The best paper of all was by a student whose mother tongue is not English. What do you know?
Happily, all the papers are marked and given back to the students who just a few minutes ago finished writing their final exam.
In other news, my brother has arranged for a woman to come see my mother a couple of times a week for a fee. He did this all the way from the country in which he lives, a seven-hour time zone difference, because my other brother, the one who actually lives in the same urban area as my mother, refused to do anything whatsoever except pay the bills. All he needed was to pick up the phone and make a call. I am trying very hard not to get angry. It is not easy.
The woman has made one call and said that it went well, that she likes my mom and is looking forward to more �social� visits. This is a good thing. From what my mother remembered, she also enjoyed her visitor.
Her calls have been getting stranger lately. My husband had an argument with her a few days ago because she refused to believe that my brothers were here sons. But she has other moments where she is definitely confused, but knows that she is. I had to tell her today that her parents have been dead for more than 40 years, reminding her that she was with them at the very end. She remembers nothing of this. She keeps asking me if she has any money, and I tell her that she does, it�s in investments, all her expenses are looked after and if she wants cash in hand, she should talk to my brother who is in charge of her finances. Knowing him as I do, she probably asks him to bring her money, and he doesn�t.
I�ll be going to see her next week for several days and I will bring her $100 in tens and twenties just so she can have money in her pocket, and then I will email my brother and tell him to send me a cheque. We shall see.
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