Thursday, August 13, 2009

some people have so much privilege they need to use google to find problems.


so.... its been a while since i have written. one of the fabulous things about working on a college campus is that we get lots o' time off in the summer. this provides ample opportunity to read new books, hang with friends, visit family, go on road trips, bake new yummy desserts, etc...but not too much blog time.

classes start here in 2 weeks so i suspect that my blogs will become more frequent as i write to vent about crazy students who make me love (and hate) my job. for example, in one of my classes a couple years ago we went to see An Inconvenient Truth and the students had to write a reaction paper (read: personal opinion) about a the film. one student wrote that the film was insignificant because "as a christian woman, i know that the earth did not exist more than 6000 years ago". um... ok... that's certainly an opinion.

and then another student wrote a beautiful response to the film...it had witty metaphors and clever word play. i told him that he could have a great future in reviewing films and he seemed nervous. on a hunch i did some digging and as it turns out, his review was so good because it was THE NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF THE FILM! oy vay.

then i had another student last year who plagiarized an entire 15 page paper on the topic of illegally downloading music from the internet. oh the irony.

ooh...one of my favorite student stories was the time when i taught a senior capstone class for liberal arts and the students had to identify a world problem that they were passionate about and then offer viable solutions for the problem. one student came to me a few weeks before the end of the semester and said:

jimmy: *deep meathead student voice* "um.... i couldnt think of a topic so i googled 'world problems' and the first thing that came up was 'world hunger'. can i write about that?"
ME: *blank stare and long pause*: "wait, let me get this straight... you GOOGLED world problems?"
jimmy: "yeah. so can i write about hunger or what?"
ME: *resisting the urge to punch him in the face* "jimmy, if you had to GOOGLE world problems to find a topic, do you honestly feel that you are in a position to offer a viable solution to world hunger?"
jimmy: *long pause* "yeah, that's true. so can i write about steroids?"
ME: "im sure you could."

and....scene.

im looking forward to the start of the semester so i can have more blog time and so that i can add to my list of ridiculous stories about students.

anywho...i digress. after all, this is a TTC blog so i should at least write about TTC. the problem is...there aint much to write about. loyal readers might recall that when we last left our heroines they were gleefully taking the summer off to rest the ovaries and then they were gonna pick up again in august. its now the middle of august and we still dont have a solid plan.

this is a lame post with nothing much to offer the TTC blogging community so i apologize to the 2 of you who have taken 3 minutes out of your day to read it. lol. ill be back on the horse soon enough with more TTC deets. stay tuned.

5 comments:

  1. I love posts not related to ttc. It's always fun to read about something else for a change and your delivery and content always crack me up. I can't wait to hear some stories from the 2009/2010 school year!

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  2. ...well there's 3 minutes I'll never get back! -Keeks

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  3. So funny. My partner teaches at the college level too, and without fail gets cases of plagiarism in EVERY CLASS. These kids really think their instructors don't know how to use google.

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  4. I always enjoy a good post non-ttc related. And hearing about the dumb stuff college students try to get over with certainly counts!

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  5. haha people are insane! i don't know how so many kids get through college by cheating and make it out alive! at least you catch them :)

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