RANT: bad words to follow

TO my student complaining that another student slighted her in class.

First of all, I need you to grow the fuck up and not stay silent so you can bother me later with your cries of how someone was insulting you in class and it's my problem that you didn't say anything.

But second of all, you need to recognize that as a fully-formed adult with online access it is not my job to explain to you that "supersede" is NOT AN INSULT. As in "Susie, I think your comment superseded all the others." As in, the dude was telling you that he enjoyed your contribution. NOT accusing you of plagiarism or being stupid. Why you immediately went to insult, I have no idea, since he was being all smiley when he said it. So what the fuck.


TO the new administrator who offers me classes and then takes them away less than a week before they begin because of a paperwork glitch that she never spoke to me about.

A phone call would have fixed this. I preface this with nice things, to give you the benefit of the doubt, but that is impossible. Since you stepped in to take over scheduling, I've gotten the impression that you are just spinning a bottle to assign classes. Why am I teaching underwater basket weaving while the underwater basket weaving instructor is teaching hamster care (my specialty)?? Clearly you got them switched, or you're just using darts to assign courses. And you need to answer emails before someone blows up your computer.

This last offense on the paperwork leaves me months of preparation gone. You are single-handedly raising my blood pressure. I don't know what to do to reduce the violent feelings I'm experiencing right now, short of chopping down a tree. Fuck. You.


TO my current book project.

When I started you, I thought this was going to be such a fun time. The topic matter is so fun to talk about and even now, 3 years in, I still delight in giving an overview of the ins and outs of the particular subject.

So why did the writing come out so bad? Have I had a stroke? What is wrong with Chapter Four? Who wrote you? I have no memory of making such odd sentence structure. And these obvious argumentative holes? How did this stream out of my head? These arguments look written by a 9th grader. What the hell happened?

I know that I have to delete this entire chapter to start again, writing more clearly this time, but fuck I don't want to do that, even though these few weeks away from teaching are the best time of all to embark on such a project. And so I go to CM instead of pushing through the writer's block. Screw you, book.


TO last semester's students.

STOP EMAILING ME. I HATE YOU. You got a B- or C because you were foolish. You skipped a bunch of class, maybe, or you bombed the final exam, or you thought the homework was optional. This is why you got a low grade. But I don't want to hear it from you any more!! You were a terrible collection of students who failed to make the easiest of connections. The fact that you were graduating seniors enticed me into the false belief that teaching you would be a wonderful learning experience. But it wasn't. It was an identical experience to teaching a freshman class. I had to teach you how to craft an argument, how to cite your sources, how to find the library, and how to analyze information. HOW HAVE YOU GOTTEN THIS FAR??? No, I will not give you a recommendation.

FFS. Stop emailing me. Or I'll go ahead and adjust your grades to a flat F. As in "FUCK YOU."


rant over