It's you!

I know, I know, I deserve a readership of zero for my blatant neglect of the blog. It's not that I wasn't thinking about you! I just had only teaching stories to report and teaching stories are TREMENDOUSLY BORING for anyone who isn't in the class.

Example: Today Problem Child (his crush is over since I yelled at him for not handing in the second assignment) challenged my authority yet again and I was all like STFU, but he was all like "No, it's 1944 not 1947," and I was all like, "Fuck off, it doesn't even fucking matter," and he was all like, "Now I should get an A," and everyone else in the class was all like STFU, and then I made an awesome point about Algeria that no one understood. And then Problem Child raised his hand again.

I can't decide if I hate teaching or kind of like it and the hatred is only there because of Problem Child and/or shitty course (gen ed freshman survey) and/or lazy, privileged G students and/or my inexperience/crappiness at teaching that can only improve with time. As E has said, perhaps this isn't the best moment to assess whether or not I like teaching (ie/ with 2 lectures to go in semester and after it is completely clear that students haven't read anything in weeks and have no intention of ever reading anything for me again.)

It's not that the semester has been a terrible disaster or anything like that. I actually think things went pretty well, that most of them learned something, and some have even developed a thin sliver of critical thinking ability. I'd have to label it a success especially when I generously (I am always generous to self, it's what I learned in grad school) factor in my inexperience, lacking of training in Continental Europe, and hatred of German history. I think I hid all these things from the snowflakes fairly well or at least managed to present my shortcoming in amusing-enough ways.

But I am dead tired of being nice to them. I'm not a nice person! I'm really not and if you're reading this blog, you know that about me. While I would love to create a classroom persona similar to Olivier on Six Feet Under (GIANT MINUS the-sleeping-with-students-and-also- anything-that-moves) where I yell at and berate my snowflakes and they love me anyway because I'm so profound OR -- and you totally saw this coming -- like Dr. Hahn where I refuse to play nice and put up with their bullshit (and they get me fired), instead the most I can manage is an impression of Ellen on her least entertaining day. Being nice sucks! And I'm terrible at it! I wonder if Ellen goes home after her vapid show and hits things (not Portia you freak - furniture, like).

Again, this might just be the late-in-the-semester talking. Luckily, I will get a chance to re-evaluate my reasons for teaching-aversion next semester when I will teach this exact same class over again. Will it be awesome when I don't have to write lectures from scratch, Problem Child has gone off to terrorize others (he's already registered in one of E's Spring classes), and I'll know what to expect? Stay tuned!

See! Teaching stories = BORING.

But, we have been doing some other pretty awesome things that I will blog about (and post pics of) shortly. Shortly, I tell you!