Cold and wet, chance of snow
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In 2015, the snow that fell in Taiwan was the first in decades. In 2025, it will have been a straight decade of there being snow each year…
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Global warming.
Interesting. And yet 50 years ago Taiwan had a ski resort.
Another change today: The wind is blowing west to east across the Taipei basin. I’ll cycle in the other direction for once to avoid the headwind.
Nope.
Last night I hauled two comforters to the laundromat in the midst of cat hair rain and a feeling of 8 degrees.
Both covers washed and warm, I tucked all 6 of us in, threw an extra light feather cover on too.
Then I remembered that last winter I only used this light one, no need for the heavy stuff.
Now I am still in bed, wearing a wool cap and a feline scarf, and considering whether it is really necessary to venture outside to chase after the garbage truck in this weather.
p.s.
According to the CWA, cold weather will last until Lunar New Year. Prepare accordingly.
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I love this weather! 
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It’s the rain. (Note to self: In a future life, don’t move to East Greater Taipei.)
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It’s hardly been raining the past few days though, just cool and (mostly) dry.
View from my balcony. It’s not visible, but there’s been a constant mist all day where I live. I bet on the north coast, it’s actual rain (but I’m not sure about that).
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Even though it’s a bit on the cold side I keep reminding myself that the choice between the weather of even the last couple of days and the weather of last summer is, for me, a no-brainer. I would still take this any day. I did get a laugh out of the picture though.
And, as has been noted, at least only misty rain which makes a lot of difference:
Wool cap, knitted scarf, heavy sweatshirt, socks and sweatpants have been my uniform the last couple of days.
It’s not.
If something turns stinky put it in the freezer.
Probably up and down anyway. Today should be the last of the really cold stuff as the temps gradually rise. Hang on till Tuesday and we should get some springlike weather.
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It glittered and it gleamed
For the arriving beauty queen
Siouxsie And The Banshees - Kiss Them For Me (Official Music Video) [HD Upgrade]
Lovely weather today: a bit warmer than yesterday, but unfortunately a little more pollution as well.
And damn it, I’m probably stuck inside most of the day finishing off the semester tasks, with grades that I need to upload by lunchtime tomorrow!
Yes, I know whining about it online isn’t exactly an efficient way to get things done.
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Now is the time, @lostinasia, for the staircase grading method. Take all of your papers to the top of the nearest flight of stairs and fling them outward. Papers that land on the top steps get high grades, middle step papers get medium grades and bottom steppers get lower grades (but not failing or they’ll whine).
But seriously, use whatever shortcuts you can and get out in the afternoon today somehow because it looks like this will be the last nice one for some time. According to the long term forecast, cold rain returns tomorrow and nary a sunny, warmish, day like today predicted for the next 10 days and likely beyond. Even if you have to put off grading and such till tonight/tomorrow morning.
Nobody on their death bed sighs, “I wish I had spent more time in the office”.
Cheers!
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Oh, I know! I wouldn’t have written the gripe above if the rest of the week were supposed to look like today.
God damn fucking AI. Yeah, marking takes time, but I’ve never minded it that much before. Ideally it’s a dialogue between me and the students, even if that ideal isn’t necessarily met. But due to bureaucratic nonsense beyond my control, I wound up assigning some online assignments to wrap up the semester, and 24 out of 57 assignments were almost definitely ChatGPT generated, and what a soul-defeating waste of time going through all of that is.
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Where did you study educational?
This is totally backwards
The highest grades are clearly the ones further down. More distance comes from more weight, which means more paper and hence more words. More words deserves higher score
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More ink too!
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Personally, I reward brevity of language. Fewer words mean greater clarity. Clever students catch on to this and won’t waste my time, thus demonstrating critical thinking, hence more points to them! 
Ah but you do have control, I suspect anyway, as most of us in uniworld in Taiwan do. Skim and score my friend. They imposed this, not you. It will make almost no difference, particularly to those availing themselves of AI. Will anybody check or challenge? I doubt it. 
Temps are just now peaking and will begin to drop over the next three hours as clouds return. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may! Just my 2 NT$ anyway. Wish you good luck. I say this heading out the door (and yes, I’ll be in the office grading later too but after the sun begins to set).
I’m outta here.
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Oh, that’s what I did. But the part that’s soul-destroying is there ARE students who put in the effort, and I DO want to write decent responses for them, so there’s a filtering element now that didn’t use to exist.
My comments along the lines of “Good job! The grammar is terrible and I have no idea what you’re talking about so I know you used your own words!” are wryly amusing.
Me too! The marking is all done. Still nonsense work digging through emails and Teams messages to sort out absence records and late assignments, and then attempting to logically scale grades before throwing my hands up in the air and just bumping dozens of students up to a passing score. But the bike tires are pumped up and the rest of the work will get done this evening.
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