Some older stuff

I am starting this Blog by posting things I had saved and meant to publish for the past year or so. I am finally getting around to it.

3-2-06
Things are good for me. Granted I just had a knock down drag out fight with my son on the way home from school. Worst thing was we were walking with his friend. Well I have no shame and will bitch you out in front of the Pope. It goes back to the arguing with me for no reason. And bitching about it too boot. It is just he likes to disagree with me for no reason except to disagree. So I let him try his luck at what he said and he could not, as I had told him. It is just so mean of him to act that way towards me. I scream and yell then calm down and then clam him down then we walk home. 10 minutes after we are home his friend Frankie is over and they are playing a wrestling game on the Game Cube. I guess "All's well that ends well!" And I do not care who is watching because I will still be his father.

Again the point is that he needs to think why he is disagreeing with me. If it is for a reason then fine but if it is just to score points then it is annoying. It gets to me after a week of work and twitchy computers, I do not need twitchy children. Granted when my students at the college act up I start to call then Andrew. I slow down and explain everything nice and slow. They get the point usually. But some are still thick.

OK this one is great I had a student pull a Dumb and Dumber. So the first time she wrote her essay it was riddled with contractions. Now, I tell them time and again that contraction are not permitted in academic writing. It is just not acceptable. Well the student is writing a revision of their essay during class and I point and say"Contractions are not acceptable in academic writing" She says "But you said contractions were what a woman does when she gives birth"

Now this student did not know the word but I also send a list of common complaints when I send back their home work (I am not sure that you know I do all of my writing classes on the computer (I could teach then completely online if the college let me) and students submit work by e-mail - I do have a few that still hand me paper but I discourage that. Well one of the things I send in the list is...
"Contractions are not acceptable in academic witting. Have you seen any in the reading you have been doing? No!

You say "I haven't heard dis before"
You write "I have not heard of this before"

So the student had to ignore the notice and then when she saw the (contractions not permitted in academic writing) she did not look up at the top of the page to see the example. She must have though I was really talking about a woman's contractions during birth! How is that possible? I explained polite that I was joking to the student and walked out of the computer lab to laugh my ass off and tell a few other instructors. It was one of those classic moments.