Students, oh the students

Let me preface this post by saying loud and clear I like teaching. It's probably the main reason I'm in a university and not working some 9-5 job and writing at night. But, as it's exam week, let's talk about some of the ridiculousness, shall we? Some scenarios from the week:

• Multiple students emailing me questions about how to organize their final projects. The guidelines that are important are clearly spelled out on the assignment sheet (how many copies, what order, etc). They had multiple opportunities--as in, every class period since midterm--to ask me any other question they had. So what is up with the last minute email panic?
• On that note, one of my best students--I like this guy a lot--emailed to ask me if I'd send him another copy of the assignment sheet because, get this, he gave his to a classmate who hasn't shown up in, like, two months!
• A student who put her name on every page of her blue book exam, which sort of defeats the purpose of a blue book, which is anonymity!
• A student I'm writing a letter of recommendation for gave me his materials after one of his deadlines already passed. And I'm supposed to say how responsible and mature he is? WTF?

I think those are the prize-winners for the week. I am done grading the exams for one class. I have written one of three letters of rec. I still need to write two more letters, calculate grades for class #1 (yes, I'm an idiot who uses a paper gradebook), and do the grading for class #2 when it all rolls in tomorrow. In the middle, there's the Dr. Gorgeous Debriefing this afternoon...