in other news.

to prepare for move to the south, i celebrated and bought some eudora welty. now some of you may say it's a sad excuse to procrastinate the packing, and to you i say - yup. but i do heart me some good southern literature.

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one of the super cute boys buying the house called last night to gush about how lovely the house is. he told me he'd actually written a love letter for me about the house, but his partner convinced him it was way too gay to leave. it very well may have been. but i bet it was fun.

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packing sucks.

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stop the presses! amazing news has just broken. according to cnn, college students are narcissistic and think the world revolves around them!

gee. really? come on. when i was in college i was narcissistic. who wasn't? how is this breaking news? well, okay, according to the article, something like 2/3 of freshmen interviewed decided they were all that, compared to something like 60% in th eighties and 40% in the sixties, but how is this breaking news? and, even funnier, in a related video-article on cnn, there's a report that (gasp) fat & ugly girls are asked to leave a sorority! gasp...? really? people, por favor, as agatha's husband would say.

let's be serious. when have fat & ugly girls ever really been welcome in a sorority - at least a 'good' sorority? when have fat & ugly guys ever been welcome in a fraternity? well, okay, scratch that last part. it seems like every fraternity welcomes fat, ugly goofballs in with relatively welcome arms - you know, comic relief and all (sort of like a court jester back in the day, no?). life is not fair. life in sororities or fraternities are not fair. it's not fair that people really get caught up in this and worry about it, but i digress.

back to the amazing news that students think the world revolves around them. and it's really not so new, is it?
examples i can provide off the top of my head

a. student who was really, really, really irate because, when teaching a business writing class, i marked down on exams and homework for grammar errors. 'really,' she protested, 'what's the big deal? this is a business class, not an english class.' so if she's bad at grammar, who cares? why shouldn't she still get an A in a business writing class?

b. student who emailed me three weeks into the class to complain about the amount of work required, despite my having spent a large portion of the first class (which she was at) discussing the demands of the class and heavy work load. 'this is really unfair,' she wrote, 'i'm a busy person. if i had known how much work was required, i wouldn't have taken the class.' so what if she doesn't feel like doing the work in an upper-level work intensive class. shouldn't she still get an A for her busy life?

c. student plagiarized a draft. hard-core. we met. i explained why it was plagiarism and what she would have to do to correct the problem. 'that's a lot of work,' she grumbled. i explained the alternative was failing the class if her final draft was turned in as it. as it was, she'd failed the draft (this is a class where plagiarism and how to avoid it was discussed often and at lenght - it's a component of that particular class to learn how to properly document, cite, etc.). she fixed her errors. things were cited as they needed to be. the draft was not great. overall, she got a C in the class. 'well how unfair is this,' she said, 'i mean, i fixed some stuff. why didn't i get an A?'

d. the student who, even though it was discussed at length and demonstrated in class, was mad at the online component of a class. 'technology sucks,' he said after class one night. 'this is so stupid. i don't want to have to do the online stuff.' well, you kind of have to, i explained. you can go to _______ and ______ to get assistance. 'well, shit. on my time? this sucks.' you can drop the class, i said. 'why can't you just let me skip this part?' uhm, it's a component of the class...'you're so unfair,' he said.

granted, most of my interaction with students has been wonderful, full of shiny apples and kittens and gum drops. only a few, in my experience, have demanded the world revolve around them, that syllabi be thrown out to accomodate their (not so pressing) needs, that deadlines be extended because 'i missed the due date. i was at a review for my math/science/psyc class,' that life is totally unfair and it's my fault, not theirs, for not turning in work or missing class or not reading a prompt or seeking help when it's needed. but even the handfull that expects the world is too many. of course, looking at the state of our affairs, at our president and his advisors, at the party 'it' girls, at all the folks slamming into rehab to 'exucse' their bad behavior, is it really so surprising students are narcissist at a higher rate than ever before?
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(sigh)
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i suppose it's time to get back to packing.