Sara Snowflaky, I am sorry that you were indicted in Miami for crimes that I really don't need to know about. Please stop trying to tell me about them when I'm in the middle of lecture. Your raised hand should indicate a question about the material; but it more often leads to comments that should not be made public. So stfu already.Creamy Carrie, stop talking. When I call on other people, stop talking. When your hand is in the air more than Hermione Grainger's, you better be right. But you aren't. Bringing up how your grandma once told you about this one fact about society and somehow it has nothing to do with our class but you'll bring it up anyway.... It makes me want to hurt your face. It takes all of my strength to grade you objectively when you are so wrong, so often, and so eager to demonstrate it.
Snowflake Agent 99, I sympathize with your desire to get into the CIA. I have family in both the CIA and the FBI, and I know how great those careers can be. But when you are in the middle of class downloading illegal movies and music and forgetting to turn off the sound, it makes me doubt your ability to get into those careers. Plus, you HAVE TO STOP chewing on your own mucous when you talk to me. It makes me want to throw up. I am so so glad that you skipped about 1/3 of my classes, because that is just so disgusting.
Cap'n Morgan: You want to see me after skipping 70% of our meetings? Dear me, I thought you had dropped! What do you mean, I have to let you retake the exams and homework? What do you mean, I'm discriminating against you? And why are you talking to me so loudly?
Oh, Cap'n. You rarely show, and when you do, you breathe spicy rum breath in my direction. You often boast of your job prospects and your extreme intelligence, but then email me pathetic excuses for not doing the work. You are failing. You should have talked to me when I emailed you about dropping. I am concerned about your mental health but ordering me to give you second and third chances is not the way to play this.
Cap'n, your worst offense was threatening to "come down hard" on me in public. I don't know what the fuck that means, but you are the reason Campus Security gave me an emergency buzzer to use during class.
Sonia Snowbound, Frank Flake, and Special Stacey? I want soooo hard to give you As. You work hard, you come to class prepared, and you have engaging insights to share with the class. So stop screwing up your exams! Every paper needs a thesis. You have to use specific examples from the reading. You can't use "real life" anecdotal evidence and expect it to pass.
We have one week left. All of you need to shape up so I can head to Europe Dec 20. And never think of you, ever again.
(PS, a poll: am I allowed to start drinking at 2pm if I'm done with classes for the day? I could really use one right now)
Yes. Start drinking, posthaste.
ReplyDeleteAlso, great post.
Start tippling whenever it suits you, AM. More power (or perhaps John Powers whiskey) to ye.
ReplyDeleteDear God! 2:00pm?! I've been tempted to do it even earlier on occasion (and it's worse since there is a cocktail lounge about a mile from where I work). By all means, indulge, just not on campus, and consider your driving options. Even Dr. McCoy reserved a bottle of Romulan Ale for "medicinal" purposes.
ReplyDeleteThe cocktail lounge here gives taxi vouchers. I think I'll go have a couple of Long Islands as soon as I'm done for the day.
Vodka looks like water, and does not give off much of an aroma. For me, different kinds of alcoholic beverages have different effects on me. Jack Daniel's mellows me out and gives me that warm cozy numb feeling. However, I've recently discovered that Vodka, on the other hand, makes me brave. This became clear to me after an altercation with the Reverend Doctor in which I told her to clean her ears out.
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine what it would be like to meet Cap'n Morgan after having a few Vodka based cocktails. (ie. "You wanna humiliate me publicly?! Bring it on bitch!")
2 pm? What are you, a teetotaler?
ReplyDeleteDr. Jekyll: Please do have a drink from my bar. I must warn you, though, not to drink the green concoction from my laboratory.
ReplyDeleteProf. Hyde: Wait, I wasn't supposed to drink that?
Drink, now.
ReplyDeleteThey make emergency buzzers that call campus security?! That is AWESOME. Be sure to use it secretly to make your students think they are being watched, always.
ReplyDeleteI hope you started drinking. STFU reminded me of this. My colleagues and I printed something like that out on business cards. We use them like red and yellow cards in soccer. First a warning, then you're kicked off the pitch.
ReplyDeleteWell I am so glad that you overwhelmingly voted to let me drink, for that is where I have been for the past 5 hours. Found a few other odd profs from different disciplines in a bar downtown. We graded, drank, and toasted our students' consumption of idiot sauce.
ReplyDeleteA lovely buzz, this.
Grading as a group exercise with beer sounds almost endurable. I've never tried it.
ReplyDeleteOh, I highly recommend it! Perhaps that should be a post in itself...
ReplyDeleteYou get to read aloud the worst sentences, make fun of grammar and idiocy, create drinking games for every you're/your switch, etc. And the popcorn sustains you through the middling exams, when you are so desperate to throw them into the street.
Love the graphic. I have many creamy snowflakes this quarter.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in college, someone wrote a long, irate, letter to the editor after the campus newspaper printed a picture of a TA grading in a coffee shop. The argument was that he couldn't possibly be paying sufficient attention to the students' papers in such a crowded and noisy environment. Heaven knows what the letter-writer would make of group grading in a bar, but, especially at the end of the semester where you're mostly confirming what you already know and sheer boredom/exhaustion is the main enemy, it sounds pretty good to me. You can always set aside the 5% of essays that contain a surprise (good or bad) for more careful perusal in a less-inebriated state. Many of them will probably turn out to be plagiarized anyway. Just try not to spill any libation that leaves an odor on anything you might need to show to the honor board (or your chair). Or, if worst comes to worst, photocopy it and throw away the original, and, if questioned, claim your cat peed on it (I have actually had to use this technique, not because I was drinking, but because the cat actually did pee on the paper).
ReplyDelete