"When I was a kid we didn't have arms and legs, so we used to have to stump to school, uphill, both ways, in the snow"
Monty Python and the Final Rip-Off "The Welshman Sketch"

To say that I am displeased in this moment is kind of like telling someone in the path of a tidal wave, they might experience moisture; it's an understatement on an epic fucking level.

So last week I got up at six o'clock in the morning to cpme down here in order to print and copy my syllabus, and teach a workshop at 9:30.

Two students showed up.

This week the others showed up complaining that no one had emailed them about the room change. They came meandering in saying it was unfair of me to mark them absent since no one had bothered to tell them that the room had been changed. Uh, wouldn't the utter lack of me, their teacher, be a hint? They were going off the schedule they had in DECEMBER. And not one student, not one, thought to CHECK THEIR SCHEDULE via phone (their cellphones, which often interrupt my class, can access Torchtone) or the internet this month. Not to mention ALL of the workshops were printed and posted in the office. All they had to do was walk by and look for the love of G-d and all things holy.

Nope. For the majority of them, this was just way too much common sense to possibly hope for. Instead, I get a visit from Bleeding Heart telling me I have to excuse the absence because of "the snow" and "clearly these students put their best effort into being there." Uh, would their best efforts have involved asking someone or checking their schedules? "Well, you are holding them to your standards. Remember you were a very smart and compentent freshmen."

Yes, one would say almost fantastically brilliant in the room checking department.


Bunni: You know, I went to school with other people. It wasn't just that I managed to handle checking for room changes, it was all of the students I knew.

BH:And what was that based on? Your experience.

Bunni:Actually it was based on empirical data. I was in class with other people who managed to be there too. The profs have attendance records.

BH:But you observed them.

Bunni:So any phenomena, any thing I observe is tainted?

BH:Well these kids aren't you.

Thank fucking G-d. I lie awake at night lighting candles and praying that I will never be so ridiculous as not to handle picking up a phone and checking on a room assignment. Should it ever occur that I degenerate to that level, you have every right to take me out back and shoot me. Screw a nursing home. If I'm that far gone, I don't want to live.

Beyond the laziness of their excuse. These students in the wrong room didn't make an attendance sheet (often students do this to protect themselves from unexcused absences-for example a prof. of mine once missed her own mid term-we made an attendance sheet and signed it so she would know who was there). Further, I have a hard time accepting that they never bothered to print or check their schedules after december. Many students get waitlisted for classes or decide to change classes after their first week. More likely this was just an excuse not to attend a class they frequently skip anyway.

So I am being forced to make the absence excused because "that's what fair" and "I want their experience here to be the best experience possible."

It's at moments like this I understand why Socrates voluntarily drank hemlock.