‘February 21st. This morning I received an email from a student of mine asking whether the mark I had already registered and signed in the university system was correct or I considered the result of the exam she sat 17 days before but not the paper she sent me in December. I double-checked and she was right: I gave her 26 instead of 27, that is closer to the maximum of 30. I was upset: how did I make such a silly mistake? I am working hard and always try not to make any mistake that can damage my students. By the way, two weeks before the registration I wrote a notice on my bulletin board and asked the students to write to me within 5 days if they did not accept their mark. In that notice there was also the list of the students who had sent me the paper above and whom I had to add one mark to. But I did not include her name in the list by mistake! Why did she not tell me before? I heard that the procedure to correct it is complicated and I have to involve even the Rector.

‘I hate to show my mistakes, especially to the Department Secretary who is always so strict with the teaching staff. I have even thought to write back to the student that I had already added the additional mark and that the correct sum is 26 or that I cannot make any change because she did not write to me before and the rules of our university do not allow any change now. The more I think about it the angrier I get with myself also because I am angry for myself being unable to accept my error that, after all, is a small thing compared, for example, to what surgeons can make in operating rooms. Am I getting paranoid? I read so much on mistakes and am even writing a book on this topic! It is like I want the golden rule ‘everybody makes mistakes’ to apply to others but not to myself. I don't practise what I preach.