Rant

I don't even have sufficient energy to properly rant. Let's just say yesterday was the first time I've led a discussion with drunk people in it (it was Georgetown Day). Sr. Margarita Aloysius is a Georgetown grad and comforted me kindly and told me not to take it personally (I do! Do these kids just not sufficiently love learning?!). My thoughts on Georgetown Day: put it on a weekend or cancel school that day, but do not make the poor teachers compete with the alcohol.

The kids were sitting there during discussion trying not to get the good kids, who do love learning, to ask any more questions so that the class would be dismissed early. And of course, they were whispering loudly to each other. At one moment, I had to intervene, because a pencil was being threatened to be chucked across the whole room over my head during the class. At another moment the class turned to watch a guy fall down the steps, and then they all laughed. Laughed. Who responds that way to seeing someone in pain?

As my first section filtered out, I learned an important lesson: there is an outfit for day drinking. I asked one of my students if he was going to play some sort of sport afterward (he was wearing mesh shorts and a cheap sleeveless jersey--something you might wear for an intramural game of some sort). The whole class started laughing. One of my students took pity on me and explained after everyone else had gone that this is the day drinking uniform.

All I have to say is that I hope that someday I'm a professor and I get to throw students out of my class for smelling of beer (I've actually never seen whole bodies smelling of beer in this way before this) or even for wearing the day drinking uniform (not classroom appropriate by any stretch).