Email from student: I missed a couple of lectures and sections. Can I meet with you to go over everything I've missed?
Draft email: Sure, let's have a private tutorial where I go over everything with you that we went over in class. I would be more than happy to do that for you. I love students skipping class and expecting me to do more work because of it.
Actual email sent: Get notes from a classmate.
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Facebook status: My baby is the cutest baby ever.
Draft response: Really? I think he's kind of alien looking. And why the dumb name?
Actual response: Nothing.
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Blog post: I make the same mistakes over and over and over again and then write about them to get some reassurance that I'm not a dumb fuck.
Draft response: If you're going to do the same things over and over again, at least have the creativity to say something new about it.
Actual response: Nothing.
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Guy on the bus: Lets his two year old son wander up and down the bus aisles, while the bus is moving. I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to him because he had a baby in a car seat with him, too, but it's downtown and the bus is crowded and moving...
Dude sitting at the front of the bus (to the child who is now sitting in the middle of the aisle): You can't sit there, son.
Guy on the bus: Dude, he's TWO.
Actual response in my head: And you're a douche who's not taking care of his kid.
Actual response of everyone on the bus: Silence.
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Guy on elevator (towards two women wearing headscarves): Hey, you ladies black?
Woman #1: chattering in a foreign language to Woman #2
Woman #2: glares
Guy on elevator: talk, talk, talk, harass, harass, harass
Me on elevator: silence
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Sometimes I don't know if I say too much or say too little.
I get really upset when I see people not taking care of their kids and then when they do something wrong, they use their age as an excuse. It is your responsibility to watch your kid in public! I realize that little kids get into things even when you're paying attention but when you're watching your kid do bad things, you can't blame it on the kid being young!
ReplyDeleteIt's so hard to speak up sometimes. There's a fine line between doing the right thing and setting yourself up for an angry response.
ReplyDelete(Although I love your draft email to the student. DUDE. I once had a student get really angry at me because she turned her paper in a few hours after the deadline I gave, and I didn't accept it. Well, I set the deadline, went to the school on a day I didn't teach, picked up all the papers that were in ON TIME, and went home. I'm not going back just to pick up her paper because she's above the rules. Blech.)
Hysterical post, darling!
ReplyDeleteLove it!
xoxox,
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