Then Again, Who Cares?

Of course there are always those people who come along and snap me out of feeling too sorry for the human condition. And I'm getting closer and closer to sending the actual email or having the face to face conversation that I usually scurry home and blog about in an angry manner. Like so:

Dear Sweet Little M From Jersey: No one believes you when you claim to have gone to the building I work in and no one knew where the writing center was. Not even your own classmates believed you. You probably should've waited until after class to ask me about it, instead of confronting me loudly about how I must not know what I was talking about in front of everyone right before class started. I had to explain that if you had gone to the secretaries demanding a "peer review", they probably would've told you that they didn't know what you were talking about. If, on the other hand, you had used the two words "writing center" together in a sentence, then they would've pointed you in the direction of the basement. At this point you got a little pissy. You mentioned Sell-Out Sal who sits behind you and who totally went with you and, like, had the same problem. I mentioned Sal had emailed me that night and I had emailed her back the following morning -- three days ago. Didn't Sal tell you? Oh, wait, she didn't, did she? You could've always emailed me instead of waiting until the absolute minute the thing is due to bring it up. Maybe you should stop partying with her and letting her run your life. That's always an option.

Dear Sell-Out Sal: I'm getting to the point where I really don't like you as a person. I've watched you run New Jersey M's life from a decent B- student to a D student. I get that you're here to party. You don't believe me when I say it's probably not a good idea to pay a $28,000 cover charge instead of going to college. But you'll get yours grade-wise soon enough. What got me was the look on M's face when you whipped out that green sheet from the writing center, where you had gone to make up the day you both got kicked out of class for being screw-ups. You didn't tell her when you had it figured out by lunchtime the next day, did you? Oh, and so sorry that I screwed up your travel plans, as you announced at the beginning of class (again, in front of everyone, why?) that you couldn't stay because you were, like, catching a ride home, and you had to go. And then you tried to hand me a few loose pieces of paper instead of your portfolio. I took great delight in telling you that if that portfolio wasn't in my office by 5:00 today that you were getting a D on the midterm. It was on the syllabus. I sent out three reminder emails. We went over it in class for the past week. At this point, your forgetfulness is not my fault.

Dear Phil-a-Party-Pino: I get that college is, like, wa-ay better than high school and the dating pool just expanded. I'm also happy you turned in your portfolio, such as it is. You've got bigger problems, m'dear. You got your first alcohol incident within 24 hours of stepping foot on campus. You followed that up later in the week with a pot violation that landed you in required AA classes. You've since hit your third violation in the dorm for putting a pack of booze under your sweatshirt (dumbass, at least be smart and put it in your backpack), and you're being tossed out of that dorm. Of course, since they're just moving you to a different dorm, you'll learn nothing from this. Especially considering you got caught in a different dorm on an alcohol violation, but they let you skate on it. And then later two cops picked you up smoking a joint on a public park bench. LOL. You're lucky they let that one go, too. They really shouldn't have. You seem like the kind of person who has to hit absolute bottom with no get-out-of-jail-free cards in order to realize the situation you made for yourself. I just wish NJ M and Sell-Out Sal would quit partying with you.

Midterms are always such wonderful and reflective times. Sigh.

-- DV