It burns! it burns!

Oh, man.

I'm not a drinking woman, but if I were, I'd be heading to the package store after I get done with my grading.

The papers, they are not so good.

These are project-plan papers for one of my classes. I gave a list of guidelines and suggestions. I at least briefly discussed the topics each student chose with them, to let them know if the topic was appropriate or not. At least half of the papers have gone off on their merry way, not following a SINGLE guideline. Several of the projects planned are ones that I specifically told the students wouldn't work for this class when we had our pre-paper consult.

And on top of it, I feel like crap. My allergies are really bad - I feel like I'm coming down with a cold, but the cold NEVER COMES. I think it's going to be like this until the first frost, which could come as late as December here.

I'm just furious at the people who, after I spent time explaining why their project plan didn't fit in with the guidelines of the class, just went ahead and proposed it anyway - because it was easy, because it was what they wanted to do despite the class guidelines, because they didn't want to go searching for a new project.

No. I am bleeding red ink all over your paper. You are merely going to have to re-do the project. This is not like when you were 13 and your mother got so sick of telling you to clean your damn room that she finally gave up and just kept the door closed on your soiled underthings and moldy half-eaten sandwiches.

I have standards, dammit. And I can be even more stubborn than you are. I'm older, and I get a better paycheck. And it's my job to make you do stuff right. You wouldn't walk into your job and go, "Yeah, boss....I know you wanted a white-paper on the effects of hand-sanitizers on the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, but see, last week I was really, really interested in Dokken, so I wrote a white paper on Dokken instead."

You'd be laughed out of the damn lab.

And college is preparation for the real world, if it isn't actually itself an outpost of the real world. So please take stuff seriously.

I will reiterate Ricki's First Rule for College Students:

Thou shalt not piss off thy professor.

And guys? With your deliberately non-conforming (DEFIANTLY non-conforming - you knew better) papers, you're really pissing me off.

Oh, and: there are 24 people enrolled in the class and I have received 19 papers. Which were due three hours ago. If anyone comes wanting to give me a late paper, I think I'm going to use the same insulting phrase Kathy Griffin used.

(And no, not, "This award is my god now.")

(And that's another rant for another time: short version: I'm not surprised, and I'm not so much offended as I'm just sad. Sad that someone thinks that's a way to get approval and a laugh. Sad that someone apparently has such a dim view of faith and those who practice it...but whatever. I don't find her funny at all, and I'm guessing the remark was frantically blowing on the dying embers of popularity...)