What's the first interesting or unusual thing to happen today?

A teaching assistant needs spanking

Erin, one of your postdocs, is endeavouring to look professional within the somewhat difficult constraints of the college dress code. Her long, dark brown hair is done up in a tight bun and she's wearing a white blouse and straight black skirt with a slit up one thigh. On her feet are shiny black court shoes with six inch silver spike heels and her assigned spanking implement is a long, flexible narrow strap. It turns out she's doing well academically and has no problems of a personal nature (or at least none she mentions to you), but she also wants to talk about her duties as a teaching assistant.

In Trinity term, Freshers at your college get three tutorials per week (one with you, one with Erin and one with either Dr. Donohue from your faculty or, for the joint schools candidates, a tutor from their other discipline). In addition, Erin teaches a class at university level for finalists, but it's her tutorials that she needs to discuss. Last week, she had to give Debbie and Noor six of the best apiece for failure to reach the required standard.

"I am so sorry, Professor," she says earnestly, gazing intently into your eyes. "I had thought that by this late in the year, we'd be past these sorts of errors, but it seems I was wrong. I accept responsibility completely for the deficiencies in my teaching methods that caused this." Now, she lowers her gaze to the table and awaits your judgement, clearly expecting some form of punishment for the missteps of her students. It seems a bit of a double standard, as you certainly don't expect to be held to account if your girls fall short of the required levels of achievement, but that's just how things work around here now, thanks to the Rulebook.