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Huh.

I'm pretty outspoken about plagiarism in academia, mainly because as a teacher it insults my intelligence and wastes my time when a student turns in a plagiarised paper. And certainly I respect the right of anyone to object strongly to plagiarism in any genre of written work. That being said...

I stumbled over a fanfic today where a portion of the story had obviously been lifted from one of mine. And my first reaction of course is annoyance, but it's also kind of funny and sad, because even with part of the story plagiarised there's not a single comment on it. It's the only piece they've posted, as far as I can tell, and I don't see that they have any other archives. Apparently they don't read copperbadge or sam-storyteller, or at least haven't friended either one.

So, you know, if they'd turned in a stolen paper for me to grade I'd have failed them. And it occurs to me that I could possibly fail someone out of fandom, if I worked at it a bit, but it just seems like a lot of effort for petty theft, and I was a wee fanbrat myself once. I dropped them a comment, let them know OH HAI I SEEZ U, and I'm giving them a few days to take the story down or edit it appropriately. Civility is always best in these things, I think.

In unrelated news, if anyone has a Dreamwidth code going spare...*shifty look*

In other other news, I thought I'd post another Taylor Mali poem today in honour of all my former students.

( The the impotence of proofreading by Taylor Mali )

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Mum sent me a package. YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS.

(It means people will ask if she sent me a tote bag!)

I think I've trained her out of that. But instead she sent me tote boxes. Small boxes with handles, packed full of Eastery goodness. The package as a whole contained:

1 Tote Box for R, as well as a CD and cookbook
1 Tote Box for me, containing: several kinds of chocolate, Starburst chews, and an egg-dyeing kit
1 bottle of hair conditioner
2 glass rabbits (these will look awesome on my windowsill, bookending the penis pot)
1 box of spanish rice
2 packets of instant gravy (??)
1 large serving spoon
1 tiny baby-food spoon

I love my mum and it makes me happy that she still sends me care packages. But I worry that she's sending me some kind of arcane message as well. Is this a code? Or are the contents the ingredients to a magic spell? Should I be stirring the instant gravy counterclockwise with the baby spoon?

(The hair conditioner is not as weird as it seems. I like the Tea Tree scent and it's kind of pricey so I don't usually buy it, but Mum knows I like it so sometimes she sends me a bottle.)

Happy Easter, Have Some Sex

We got a report from Torchwood Two this afternoon of Greys in Snowdonia National Park, on Snowdon itself (the lower levels, which is even more worrying) (at least I think that's what he said, Archie has kind of a strong burr). It's possible there was a spacecraft crash or some kind of tourist package -- Earth on Three Credits a Day! -- but either way we definitely don't want reports of Reticulans filtering out to the general public. As nice as it might be for the Welsh tourism industry, we need someone to go and have a look and run them off if at all possible.

Sure, I told Gwen, why not send John Hart?

So she did.

Gwen doesn't always notice when I'm being sarcastic.

Still, I've been teaching him the concept of carrot-and-stick and while he picks it up less quickly than Max he's still getting there. I told him if he investigated the Snowdon rumours and behaved himself, relatively speaking, when he got back I would take him down the pub for a night.

He's packing now, to be gone through Monday. I think he's taking most of the armoury with him. Gwen told him we expected him to check in but I'm not sure he grasped the concept.

We sent John Hart. To Snowdonia. Unsupervised. We sent an armed sex factory to North Wales.

God help the poor bastards when he --

HART, YOU CAN'T TAKE MAX WITH YOU. STOP TRYING TO PACK HIM.

(no subject)

Huh.

For about twenty minutes, Google Chrome thought I was in Germany and wouldn't let me log into Gmail. Apparently I'm back now.

Also, with possibly record timing, the plagiarist from earlier took the post down. I am proud of her for doing the right thing, anyway. Life has its little lessons to teach us...