Ya know,... re: students

Ya know, even though oftentimes the students who are late with their work make my life a living hell, the job still balances out on the happiness scale.

I am extremely happy teaching. I often have students who call me, write letters, e-mail me, or who just drop by that tell me how much my class has helped or changed them for the better.

Those statements, those thoughts, and the fact they bothered to express them to me, mean a WORLD. Sometimes people aren't happy at their jobs. There's a big difference in not being happy WITH one's job and not being happy AT one's job. Everyone has days where they hate work. Lucky people are the ones who enjoy their jobs even though they have an occasional unhappy day. I'm lucky. :)

Thank you to my former students that remind me from time to time what rewards teaching brings. And on that note, I'm writing e-mails to my former professors thanking them for all they've done. Let the cycle continue!

Late Students Can Bite My Ass

Thank goodness it is Friday. I'm so frikkin' worn out. This last week was one where all my students hand in outlines then within either 28 hours or 56 hours (the outlines come in waves) I have to have them graded and get them back to them. That's a lot of work. These aren't like math tests where I just have to check the answers. HOPEFULLY they're intellectual pieces of work written well in order to be presented to the class in speeches.

There's one problem with this - students who don't do their damned work. Fuck those dumbass slacker students who make my life hell. Yeah yeah, they were sick. Yeah yeah, their grandma died. Yeah yeah, they had to fly out of the country. I don't give a shit - especially if they didn't call me to let me know! What the fuck is up with that?!? I can't wait till these kids get out in the real world. Try pulling that shit at work, fuckup. Your boss won't give a damn if you had 14 family members die in a bizarre electrolysis accident in the jungle of Brazil and you had to fly out of the country then got sick while there so bad you barfed up a kidney. You know what he'll say when you get back if you didn't call him before you got on that plane? "Don't bother coming back Monday. Your office shit has been mailed to you already."

Turn your work in on time. Turn it in with all the required materials. God damn, I go over this shit in class, I provide you a handout with the requirements on there, and I even make myself a tally of how many times I say it in each class so I know I've covered it. Hell, I told them five times to provide me photocopies of the title page, copyright page, credibility page, and the pages they use. I told them, "If you give me your folder without all your source materials I'll just hand it right back to you and it will be considered late and counted at half credit." How many students do you think didn't do this? About 30 of them didn't. Damn America is in trouble. If this is the efficiency and ability to follow simple instructions we have to look forward to in our future leadership, we're doomed. Plain and simple, doomed beyond repair. No wonder politicians are so retarded sometimes, hell, look what we're letting out of High School as "competent in the English language!" My wife from Japan has better grammatical sense than some of my students raised in America!!! How sad is that ????

Seriously, 30 students is FAR too many to deal with. I'm giving them the option to make up this speech within ONLY two time slots. If they can't do it, tough shit. 30 is ludicrous. I refuse to do this shit again. I schedule my time to grade. Fuck them if they can't turn shit in on time. I am modifying my syllabus to read, "NO LATE WORK, WHATSOEVER, WILL BE PERMITTED. IF A WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT IS NOT TURNED IN ON TIME, YOU GET A ZERO FOR IT." That will count for the people who can't follow directions too. I won't accept it without the proper source documentation - and tadah! they just earned a ZERO.

Put that in your bonnet, slackers.
Damn I feel better now that I've vented.
But for some reason I still crave the urge to kill virtual creatures. :)
Too bad my server is down for maintenance. Grrr....
I need to vent about that too I guess.....
Another day perhaps.

We got squashed by a BIG bug in Razorfen! If you look carefully you can see me under his right front leg. Hey, I go for the heart of the problem. :) - Bullox tells the group, "I wonder what banging this Gong does..." - famous last words.