This is just a sampling of the inane conversations I’ve had this semester. I submit them, followed by my thoughts, for your enjoyment (and so I can have a piece of the pie).
Forgetful Fran: I just noticed that I signed up for a chemistry lab this semester. Am I supposed to have been attending it?
Your timing is impeccable. The date for withdrawing from classes was last Friday.
Foreign Fabrizio: I need to talk to you about registering for your chemistry lecture class. No, not for me but for my friend here. He can’t speak English so I’m helping him.
Whatever. English-speaking students don’t understand chemistry either. You’ll fit right in.
Absent Arney: I’m sure you are wondering why I missed the first two exams this semester. Tell you what – you can just count my final exam double to make up the difference. I don’t want to inconvenience you by asking that you write two new exams.
Actually, the easiest thing to do is leave the blank spots for your exam grades on my Excel spreadsheet. It treats them like zeros anyway. By the way, the deadline to withdraw was last Friday.
Pissing me off Parent: My child cannot understand her professor. She needs to be placed in your class.
Sure, I always reserve a slot in my classroom for the “child” of an obnoxious parent. Granted, I know the professor who teaches her class and I can’t understand him either. Life’s just tough all around.
Curious Carl: I have something sticky on my hands. Does the chemistry department have anything to get it off?
Well, if you weren’t so busy getting off, you might not have sticky hands.
Don't they say that about France, too?
ReplyDeleteRig the lab to explode, get all the dud students in there, say you need to see a man about a horse, walk out of the building and...BLAMMMO!! No more problems!
ReplyDelete(Except for the cops, the sniveling taxpayers, the sobbing bitch parents, the fuckwhistle columnists, etc. ad nauseam.)
A man with a horse? You must mean Southern Bubba.
DeleteOh lord--I snorted quite loudly at the last one.
ReplyDeleteBravo, Beaker Ben.
Fuuuuuuck, Ben. I mean, fuck it all!!!
ReplyDeleteReplace your science-y jargon with something more discipline specific, and I could claim those conversations as my own. I swear there is something going on this semester in particular. I intend to open up my Fall lectures with a new conversation to stem this horrendous tide. Normally I start a class by discussing goals for the course and definitions of discipline, but next term I will spend the first 50 minutes discussing what the point of college is. And how to succeed.
It has come to that. The most basic question of life ("Why am I here?") has eluded their starry-eyed, snowflake minds.
In their defense, "Why am I here?" is one of the basic philosophical questions for all times.
DeleteIt's telling that they don't even bother to ask themselves that very basic question before shelling out the equivalent of half their paycheck for the next 20 years in order to spend time at college in the first place.
Delete