tiny little vent

Because I can't wait for tomorrow.

(after this I am off to spend many hours setting up an experiment involving soil, pea gravel, 160 plant pots, water...)

But: I am SO DONE with one of the students in my non majors class. Well, two of them, actually. They sit together in the back of the room. Both have Ds. One came crying to me with that "I need to pass this class what can I do" complaint (I told her but she's not implementing what I told her). Both skip regularly.

Both were here today. The guy pulled out a paperback and started reading it in class.

I don't know what you think about that (and I've actually posted on some bulletin boards online where people are HORRIFIED that I even get upset about that; they take the attitude that it's his free will) but I think that is just one of the rudest things a person can do in class.

If you really want to tune out that much, don't come. I don't give points for attendance and you've already lost any chance at being "bumped up" if you're on a borderline between grades.

Because I'm kind of wimpy, I never say anything to the person. I may stop and contemplate them for a moment or two, long enough to cause an uncomfortable silence in the class, but then I go back to talking with the people who give a sh*t and answering their questions. (And there are a lot of questions as we're on the human physiology unit now. And I welcome the questions, even the ones I don't know the answers to.)

But today - he and his girlfriend in the back, they must have found a good sex passage in the book, because they were passing it back and forth and talking.

So I stopped. And I glared at them. And a bunch of the concerned students turned around and glared at them too. I was on the point of saying something (like I said, kind of wimpy) when they realized what was going on and put the book down and shut up.

Do they realize how bad they just looked? Do they realize that not pissing off the professor is a cardinal rule of school? Do they realize that they contributed one tiny brick to the Wall of Burnout that's slowly building in my soul?

Probably not; people like that tend to not see much past their noses.

But anyway, meh - the guys who sit on the front row seem to enjoy the class. They ask questions. They laugh at my jokes. They're passing the class (if not getting As). They're the ones I'm teaching for, not the immature fools who sit in the back row and pass notes and giggle.