I just had to re-read an email from a student three times to comprehend what was in it. I have had two women enrolled in my Advanced Underwater Hamster Fur Weaving course this semester, Sue and Mary (not their real names). Not once have they shown up (as in they are the only two women registered for this course, I would notice), but they have been submitting exercises through the learning management system. The exercises were often wrong or in a wrong format, but hey, they were in on time, what am I bitching about.Tonight I received this missive:
I wanted to explain why we (my wife and I) haven't been to the Advanced Underwater Hamster Fur Weaving-class.
First, [standard student excuse #47].
The second reason is: My wife is now 10 weeks pregnant and the doctor [I'll spare you the T.M.I.]. I think, I don't have to say that this was the most horrible time for us and we are relieved that we could do the basic homework for our university classes anyway.
Maybe you can understand now why we haven't been to class.
Yours sincerely,
Sue
Okaaaaay. Maybe it's a boy named Sue. Maybe it was the Immaculate Conception. Maybe it is... naah, I don't want to think about that. Blessed be Blackboard. I must admit that I am at a loss how to answer this email. I suppose since no question was asked, I can just ignore it.
Sigh. Blogspot parsed some good stuff out. The first blank is: Standard Student excuse #47. The second one is "I will spare you the TMI".
ReplyDeleteI ignore them if there's no question. More and more, I receive e-mails that are just a list of excuses and nothing else. My favorite are the ones that begin: "I'm not making excuses..."
ReplyDeleteSuzy, it's because you put them in angled brackets. That reads as HTML code. I can replace it. Hang on.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Somehow I was dreaming that Blogspot did not interpret HTML but put it through 1:1. On Wikis the [ ] stuff makes a link. So much to remember.....
DeleteIf you want to use actual angle brackets, you need to use the proper HTML code:
Delete< is the left-hand angle bracket
> is the right-hand angle bracket
It wasn't intended as code; it was just two parenthetical remarks. It was no big deal.
DeleteYes, I was just explaining how to use <angle brackets> in a comment.
DeleteOh, this makes more sense now. :) No question asked, so no response required. :)
ReplyDeleteBut you have to be careful of the "Proffie-didin't-respond-to-excuses-so-therefore-excuses-must-be-acceptable" trap.
DeleteIn the snowflake's mind, it works like negative option billing.
I got an incomprehensible email the other day and responded in my usual fashion: "I do not understand what you are asking me."
ReplyDeleteIt's the 21st century. Girls and girls can get married now, in many states of the union (including mine). And it's fairly easy for two women to choose pregnancy (or even accidentally stumble on it, if one of the women isn't on one side of the Kinsey scale).
ReplyDeleteI wasn't finding the female-with-wife-and-baby-on-the-way thing too surprising, either. Heck, I'm probably at least as old as you are, Suzy, and one of my college roommates has been married to another woman -- before God and witnesses, including me, if not yet under the law -- since the year after we graduated. Their children (conceived via donor insemination, I'm pretty sure; I never inquired into the details, just attended the shower for the first one and offered hearty congratulations on the safe arrival of both) are nearly college-age themselves now. I don't know what terminology they use to refer to each other with people who don't already know them (with me, they use each others' names), but "wife" would make as much sense as anything (especially since one of them has business partners, so "partner" could get confusing).
DeleteIt's also worth noting that, even if same-sex marriage isn't legal in your state, couples have an incentive to be married out of state, since it's now looking as if the federal government will recognize same-sex marriages solemnized in any state where they're legal for federal purposes (e.g. income and estate taxes, social security, military benefits -- to the extent that the military now offers leave to travel to a state that allows same-sex marriage in order to claim eligibility for benefits). And no less than authority than Miss Manners has decreed that "wife" is, unless the parties involved express another preference, the most obvious way to refer to a female spouse, regardless of the gender of the other spouse (sorry; can't find the link right now).
Which leaves us back at standard student excuses and the illusion that handing in work on Blackholeboard is enough to pass the class. Unless the TMI stuff involves life-threatening complications and/or bed rest, I wouldn't be particularly sympathetic (and even then, I'd wonder why the non-pregnant partner wasn't attending and taking notes for both, at least once they'd worked out the basic logistics of the situation. Even if they have an older child or other responsibilities, they'd presumably arranged to both be away from home for the time of your class, and I don't see why they couldn't still make use of those arrangements).
My brother and his wife are expecting their 4th. He is completely sterile. I've never bothered to ask where their kids come from, because I'm too busy giving raspberries.
DeleteOne of our church elders and her wife recently had a son.
ReplyDeleteThe doctor is his mother!
ReplyDeleteHA! I love that one and am always surprised because it still "works" on people!
Deletebut you don't bury survivors, even if you take the fox back in the boat leaving the first chicken alone on the far shore which Moses didn't do because he didn't take the animals on the Ark, Noah did, and neither Moses or Noah was the bus driver because YOU'RE the bus driver, and the phone call came from inside the house, but not from the Mama Bull because there is no such thing.
DeleteImpressive, MAM. That almost made sense. Besides, it was better written than what I normally. see.
DeleteOn my first (careless) reading I had thought it meant the husband was inadvertently confessing to doing his wife's homework. I strongly suspect one of my colleagues of having done her husband's work for an online course he took.
ReplyDeleteIt can be a bit tricky socially. Married friends of my partner and I took us out to dinner once. One of them paid, but later I thanked his husband, with whom I work. It wasn't a faux pas, they knew I intended to thank THEM as a married couple--but I did take the trouble to explain what I meant.
It'll take a little while for new social norms to evolve.
Just for the record, and in light of Leslie's recent post, let me make it clear that my comment above isn't meant to indicate that I think Suzie is a homophobe or anything like that, and any snark in it is meant playfully. And I say that as a big ol' queer.
ReplyDelete